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Australia steps up security
By Grant Holloway
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australia is stepping up its security around potential targets for terror attacks in the wake of the weekend bomb blasts in Bali. The nation's counter-terror nerve-center has moved to 24-hour watch and states are reviewing security at sites considered potential targets in the wake of the Bali attacks. The Protective Security Co-ordination Center in the capital, Canberra, has been on heightened alert since the US issued a general global warning on Friday, The Australian newspaper reports. Defense Minister Robert Hill said Tuesday there was extra security around bases and installations that might be a target, but defense forces were not on a heightened state of alert. "They've been on a high state of alert for the last year basically," Hill told Channel 7's Sunrise program. He said Australia had doubled its counter terrorism capabilities in recent months and increased security at airports and on aircraft. And the nation had "vastly increased intelligence in relation to our region." But despite this, he said, "we were still not able to predict this attack in Bali." At a state level, Police Commissioner Ken Moroney has ordered increased police patrols across New South Wales, Australia's most populous state. Moroney said he had directed his 80 local area commanders to step up surveillance in and around major infrastructure such as power stations, gas, water and energy facilities and places of worship including mosques and schools. Extra vigilance"I want to reassure the community that there is no intelligence at this stage to suggest that NSW is under any immediate threat," the commissioner said in a statement released late Monday. "However, this is not the time to be complacent and I have ordered NSW police be extra vigilant." Moroney also said an updated anti-terrorism plan was being finalized and would be presented to the state government within weeks. Elsewhere, extra security guards have been deployed outside the Indonesian embassy in Canberra and consulates in capital cities. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Monday the federal government would now review the nation's existing anti-terror legislation despite toughening it substantially following September 11. The government was also looking at further strengthening anti-terrorism capabilities over and above the creation of two new units in recent months.
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