Al-Qaeda 'Preparing To Attack' Asian City

Al-Qaeda ‘preparing to attack’ Asian city

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/33cb0c4c-15...00e2511c8.html

By Martin Arnold in Paris
Published: August 25 2005 21:53 | Last updated: August 26 2005 03:02

Al-Qaeda is preparing an attack on a big financial centre in Asia, such as Tokyo, Sydney or Singapore, to undermine investor confidence in the region, France's top terrorist investigator warned yesterday.

Jean-Louis Bruguière told the Financial Times yesterday that several Asian countries were less prepared than the US or Europe for such an attack.

“We are somewhat neglecting the capacity or desire of the al-Qaeda organisation to destabilise the south-east Asia region,” said the respected judge, who has orchestrated the arrests of hundreds of terrorist suspects in the past 20 years.

“We have several elements of information that make us think that countries in this region, especially Japan, could have been targeted,” said Mr Bruguière.

He appears eager to raise public awareness of the growing threat to Asia, which is understood to have emerged from recent intelligence findings.

He argues that some Asian countries have less experience of Islamic terrorists than the US or Europe, making them more complacent about the risk of attack. An attack on an Asian financial centre, such as Tokyo or Sydney, would be symbolically important for al-Qaeda, he said, and designed to throw the region's recent economic boom into doubt.

“An attack on this country [Japan] would have a very serious effect. We forget that the al-Qaeda organisation is sharpening its strategy, more than just focusing on so-called soft targets it is looking to hit economic and financial centres.”

He says Singapore could also be vulnerable to attack, in spite of its efficient intelligence services.

“Any attack on a financial market, like Japan, would mechanically have an important economic impact on the confidence of investors. Other countries in this region, such as Singapore and Australia, are also potential targets.”

His comments were echoed by critics of the Japanese government, who said it was woefully unprepared for a possible terrorist attack.

Katsuya Okada, head of the opposition Democratic party vying for power ahead of next month's elections, said yesterday: “It is not a question of whether terrorism will occur in Japan but when.”

Mr Bruguière visited Australia last month to question Jack Roche, a convicted terrorist who admitted plotting to bomb Israeli interests in Sydney and Canberra in 2000. The French judge said: “There is not enough public consciousness of the terrorist risk.”

“This lack of consciousness makes it extremely difficult for governments to pass laws that are pro-active and allow their law enforcement and intelligence services to pre-empt attacks and aggressively anticipate threats. There is more work to be done to sensitise the public to the threat.”

Additional reporting by Mariko Sanchanta in Tokyo, John Burton in Singapore and Tim Johnston in SydneyOkada challenges Koizumi, Page 3