Australian airports under guard
By Toby Forage and wires
September 10, 2004
SECURITY inside and outside airports across Australia will be beefed up in response to the embassy bombing in Jakarta.
Prime Minister John Howard announced today that stricter measures would be placed on parking at airports, including times limits on vehicles dropping off or picking up airport passengers.
The news came as Mr Howard also revealed a warning of attacks on western embassies had been passed on to Indonesian police 45 minutes prior to yesterday's blast.
Australian authorities didn't receive that warning, apprently made via an SMS message, until several hours after the explosion killed nine people and injured more than 180, including a five-year-old Australian girl.
Mr Howard said the national terror threat would remain at "medium", despite talk of extra security around the country, and he would not be drawn on any specific threats.
"Airports are not under any specific threat," he said. "I have simply asked that all security measures already in place be reviewed."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair took similar measures at airports in the UK when plans to shoot down aircraft as they left the runway at London Heathrow were discovered.
There will be extra screening on all flights and at all gates, particularly flights to and from Indonesia and flights conducted by Indonesia's national carrier Garuda.
A more obvious presence of Australian Federal Police (AFP) special forces will also become apparent in public areas, Mr Howard confirmed, adding that more funding will be made available to boost numbers in that area.
Mr Howard was the first to reveal that any warning had been given to police in Jakarta before yesterday's deadly bombing.
He said at 9.30am (12.30am AEST), Polri - Indonesia's police force - received word that if radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was not released from custody, western embassies in the country would be targeted with bombs.
The AFP was not made aware of that threat until 5.49pm (8.49pm AEST), more than seven hours after the explosion had ripped the gates off the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said even if the warning had been passed on promptly, it was unlikely to have made a difference.
"It really didn't give you anything that you could act upon anyway, because these sorts of threats come in quite regularly, not only here in Indonesia, but in other parts of the world," Mr Keelty said.
Bashir, who is in detention awaiting trial over earlier terror strikes, denounced the bombing, saying it was no way to fight on behalf of Islam.
Indonesian police earlier denied receiving any such warning.
"I am certainly not pointing any fingers at the Indonesian police force and there is no suggestion the Australian public has been kept in the dark," Mr Howard said.
"If you receive a message and a bomb goes of 45 minutes later, it's not reasonable to condemn the Indonesian police (for not passing that message on)."
Mr Howard said intelligence agencies believed that the blast might be in retaliation for Australia's increased and public ties with Indonesian police and intelligence agencies.
The Prime Minister also reiterated that Jemaah Islamiah remained a chief suspect.
"The view of the (intelligence) agencies is that it is JI," he said.
"It may involve some offshoot of JI. These organisations tend to divide but it was certainly a JI type of operation."
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has warned Australians not to travel to Indonesia.
DFAT has also told any Australians already in the country to consider leaving, and many airlines have increased services to compenstate for an increase in traffic.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10724811%255E421,00.html