JI poses biggest SE Asia threat--Australia

CANBERRA, Mar 2 (Reuters) Militant group Jemaah Islamiah may have gone quiet but its radical wing is keen to mount new attacks and poses the biggest threat to Southeast Asian security, Australia today said ahead of a security summit in Indonesia.

Last month Canberra issued an alert that Indonesian militants might be in the advanced stages of planning attacks in restive Central Sulawesi, the scene of recent sectarian bloodletting between Indonesian Muslims and Christians.

And as foreign affairs and security ministers and police chiefs from Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand prepared to meet in Jakarta on Monday, Canberra cautioned that Jemaah Islamiah was not in retreat despite a quiet 2006.

''In terms of whether JI is still the most significant threat, I think we would probably say yes,'' a senior Australian security official who could not be named told journalists.

But focusing on the JI name, he said, was not as important as it once was, confirming private analyst assessments that the organisation had splintered amid scores of arrests by Indonesian security forces.

''It's the individuals who carry the capacity and the intention, and they can morph into other organisations and they can move off and work in different ways,'' the official said.

''We would still say JI is a serious threat, but let's not take our eyes off other groups.'' Next week's meeting brings together the six countries hit hardest by attacks mounted by JI since 2000, including multiple attacks in Bali and Jakarta between 2002 and 2005.

The meeting would focus on how regional governments respond to radicalism and terrorist attacks causing mass casualties, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

''The last two years have been good years, not perfect years, but they have been good years in Southeast Asia in terms of counter-terrorism,'' Downer told parliament.

Another Australian official said unconventional threats the summit would discuss included ''exotic attacks'' such as bioterrorism.

''In the ongoing background noise on this issue, the intent or the desire to pursue or examine those options is still happening,'' he said.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has been hit in recent years by a series of bomb blasts blamed on Islamic militants.

Most attacks against Western targets have taken place in the capital, Jakarta, and on the island of Bali, where a total of 92 Australians died in two separate bombings in 2002 and 2005.

Around 85 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderates but there is a radical fringe that has been increasingly vocal and media-savvy.

REUTERS SHB RAI1149