Australia doubles its spy numbers since 2001

Canberra, Dec 28: An influx of Chinese spies has forced Australia's home espionage agency into a recruiting drive to counter the threat as well as that posed by Muslim extremists, a newspaper report said today.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has doubled the number of foreign-language speakers in its ranks since 2004, with most newcomers fluent in Chinese, the Australian daily reported, citing unnamed sources.

Attorney General Philip Ruddock declined to confirm any increase in Chinese-language-speaking spies, but said ASIO had been on a major recruitment drive since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

''We have committed very significant resources which has enabled ASIO to expand its staffing to 1,200, double the number it had at 2001,'' Ruddock told local media.

''This campaign that we have been engaged in has been certainly very innovative and recruited high-quality staff with a range of experience and backgrounds,'' he said.

The Australian newspaper said around 88 linguists had been employed since 2004 under the recruitment drive which plans to see ASIO grow to more than 1,800 by 2011.

ASIO is Australia's domestic security agency, similar to MI5 in the United Kingdom, and is responsible for protecting the country against espionage, acts of terrorism and sabotage.

Its sister agency, responsible for overseas intelligence and spying, is the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), which has close ties with Britain's MI6 and the CIA.

ASIO agents have no arrest powers and are not armed.

A government source said Australia, a close U S ally and major trading partner with Beijing, was being aggressively targeted by Chinese agents, who were mostly operating undercover as diplomats or business figures.

''They have built up their capabilities over the last 10 years,'' the source told the newspaper. China's embassy in Australia has previously rejected spying accusations.

China is Australia's second-largest trade partner, with exports of goods and services worth 12.5 billion dollars in 2005. Australia, a staunch U S ally, also has close political ties with Beijing on the back of Canberra's refusal to publicly berate China over human rights abuses.

But ASIO, like both the CIA and the FBI in the United States, was having less success recruiting fluent Arabic speakers, with fewer than a dozen working inside security and intelligence agencies, the newspaper report said.

Arabic speakers were needed to monitor the Muslim community, which has complained of unfair targeting by Australian authorities.

Australia has never suffered a major terrorist attack on home soil, although 92 Australians have been killed in bombings blamed on Islamic militants in neighbouring Indonesia since 2002.

Reuters