Australia fears "lone wolf" APEC terror attack

SYDNEY, July 11 (Reuters) An Australian news magazine has said local intelligence authorities are monitoring some 20 people after they were assessed as posing a potential ''homegrown'' terrorist threat ahead of the APEC summit in Sydney in September.

The weekly Bulletin's latest edition, published today, said a group of around 20 men and women were under constant surveillance, according to unnamed intelligence sources.

''We don't have any specific intelligence on any plot. But there are people in Australia, perhaps 22 to 25, who we know have evil intentions and who are capable of carrying out very bad acts,'' a government source told The Bulletin.

Intelligence sources said that no member of the group has yet been in contact with a bomb-maker who could transform their thoughts into deeds, the magazine reported.

''This group is the subject of detailed counter-intelligence -- phone, email and mail intercepts, and constant surveillance,'' an intelligence source told The Bulletin.

Nineteen Australians are currently facing terrorism charges, with nine charged with plotting to stage an attack in Sydney, possibly on the city's small nuclear research reactor.

The APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit will see 21 world leaders, including US President George W Bush, gather in Sydney in September.

Australia, a staunch US ally, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil, but tougher anti-terrorism laws were imposed after the September 11, 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.

The counter-terrorism chief in the state of New South Wales (NSW), where the APEC leaders summit will be held, said police were checking certain people before the summit.

''There are people we think ought to be looked at before APEC and they are being looked at,'' NSW police commander Nick Kalpas told reporters.

Kalpas said police were worried about ''the lone-wolf factor'' in their security preparations for APEC.

''It has to be something that worries us -- the so-called lone-wolf factor. Somebody who doesn't communicate with anybody else,'' said Kalpas.

''We have no way of knowing or intercepting or listening in or hearing about what it is they're intending. This has to be one of our concerns,'' he said.

The Bulletin's report comes as Australian and British police question an Indian doctor over the recent failed plot to explode car bombs in Britain.

The doctor, detained in Brisbane for nine days under terrorism laws, is one of six Indian doctors to have been questioned in Australia over the suspected al Qaeda-linked plot. The others have been released.

The Australian government's top law official, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, refused to confirm or deny the magazine's report.

''Speculation as to whether or not there's another 20, another 100, another several hundred terrorists, really doesn't help,'' Ruddock told reporters.

''It's fairly dangerous to speculate about precise numbers.'' REUTERS KK KP1512