SATURDAY, MAY 17, 2003
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> From Kenya to Asia, new terror alerts
REUTERS
SINGAPORE: Terror alerts spread around the world on Friday with Australia and New Zealand warning their nationals to be on their guard in Southeast Asia, a region still haunted by last year's Bali bombings.
As Saudi, FBI and CIA agents hunted for the masterminds of this week's suicide bomb attacks in Riyadh, the US State Department said on Thursday it feared an imminent attack by Islamic militants in the Saudi city Jeddah.
Lebanon said it had smashed a plot to attack the US embassy, while Britain banned flights to Kenya, where past terror attacks have killed hundreds.
Fears are growing of more attacks by al Qaeda, the network of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Jemaah Islamiah, a radical Muslim group linked to al Qaeda is accused of carrying out last year's bombings in Bali nightclubs that killed more than 200 people, many of them young Westerners.
The Australian foreign office said Australians should be extremely cautious in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor and Brunei.
"We continue to receive reports that terrorist elements in the region are planning attacks," it said.
The travel warnings come after a string of bombings of Western-branded petrol stations in Pakistan on Thursday, while Algerian troops hunted in the Sahara desert for 15 European tourists still held by Islamist guerrillas.
The Riyadh bombings were the first big attack on US interests since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, portrayed by Washington as an integral part of its war on terror.
"Very real" threat
The United States stuck to its view that its war on terror had shattered al Qaeda's leadership, but Homeland security chief Tom Ridge said: "The potential is still very, very real."
Reinforcing that threat the State Department said it feared a repeat of Monday's bombings on expatriate compounds that killed at least 34 people, including seven Americans.
"The US Consulate-General in Jeddah has received an unconfirmed report that a possible terrorist attack in the Al Hamra district of Jeddah may occur in the near future," it said in a statement.
In unusual criticism, Washington said the kingdom needed to do more to fight terrorism. US Attorney-General John Ashcroft said the bombings showed Saudi Arabia had a "terrorism problem".
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, admitted security lapses but rejected charges militancy was a homegrown phenomenon. Bin Laden condemns the Saudi monarchy's US ties.
In Beirut, military intelligence officials said they arrested nine people plotting an attack on the US embassy and kidnappings to force the release of Islamic militant prisoners.
The Lebanese army said it and Syrian military intelligence had detained members of a cell planning "sabotage and attacks on various targets, the most important being the embassy of a major Western state". Military intelligence sources said the heavily fortified US embassy in Beirut was the target.
Britain said it had banned flights to and from Kenya because of a threat of "global terrorist activity", hours after Nairobi said the suspected mastermind of al Qaeda attacks in the African country had been spotted in the region.
Kenya called the ban excessive.
The country, reliant on tourism as one of its main foreign exchange earners, has been the scene of major attacks in recent years that authorities blame on al Qaeda.
The US embassy in Nairobi was one of two in the region hit by truck bombs in 1998. Last November, an Israeli-owned resort was blown up in the seaside town of Mombasa and militants fired two missiles that just missed an Israeli charter airliner.
Fears in Algeria
Algeria expressed concern that news of the rescue of 17 European tourists may have jeopardised 15 others still held in the Sahara desert by Islamist guerrillas accused of links with al Qaeda. The 17 were freed this week by Algerian troops in a desert gunbattle with the militants.
Military sources and Algerian newspapers said 10 Germans, four Swiss and a Dutchman still in captivity were being held by an Islamist militant group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. Several European governments criticised Austria for blurting out news on Wednesday of the rescue of the 17.
In Pakistan, police said small bombs exploded at 19 Shell petrol stations and two belonging to Caltex Pakistan, a subsidiary of US oil firm Caltex, in Karachi on Thursday.
Shell Pakistan is owned by Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group.
Pakistan is a key Muslim ally in Washington's war on terror.
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