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http://europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/03/13/malaysia.fbi/index.html CNN News March 14, 2002 Traveling terror summit lands in SE Asia KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia --The secretive roaming summit of international security heads, among them the head of America's FBI, has moved on to Malaysia and Singapore. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller was scheduled to discuss the latest developments in the war on terrorism with officials in those countries, after low profile visits to Australia and New Zealand earlier in the week, reported Associated Press news agency. Mueller and around 20 senior officials from the FBI, the CIA, Britain's MI6 and other agencies were due to arrive in Malaysia on Wednesday and travel to Singapore on Thursday. On Friday they will visit Indonesia, the world most populous Islamic nation. A Malaysian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mueller would meet top police officer Norian Mai early Thursday before heading to Singapore, but no talks were planned with Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also home minister in charge of the police. In Singapore, Mueller will "discuss joint actions against crime of all kinds but focusing on terrorist activities," a U.S. Embassy official there said on condition of anonymity. Authorities in the two countries have arrested dozens of alleged militants suspected of planning attacks against U.S. targets. Indonesia criticized Mueller will travel to the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Friday, said Stan Harsha, U.S. embassy spokesman in Jakarta. He will leave Indonesia on Saturday. "Mueller will meet with senior Indonesian government officials to discuss ways to build on existing cooperation in the war against terror," said. He refused to say who Mueller would be meet, or what specific issues would be addressed. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, has been criticized by U.S. and regional leaders for being slow to crackdown on terrorists allegedly operating within its porous and poorly policed borders. The Federal Bureau of Investigation chief has become a diplomat recently, encouraging cooperation among foreign law enforcement agencies to track down and disrupt operations by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The visit to Malaysia follows an assertion by Abdullah that no al-Qaida cell has operated in this Southeast Asian country, though al-Qaida operatives have met here and had allies among Malaysian extremists. Two of the hijackers who crashed a jetliner into the Pentagon on September 11 met in an apartment owned by Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain, in 2000. Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan origin jailed in the United States on charges of conspiracy in the hijackings, also received assistance from Yazid that year. Terror threat not disappeared' Yazid is among dozens of people rounded up in Malaysia and Singapore since December in connection with an alleged plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Singapore. The suspects include Malaysians, Singaporeans and Indonesians belonging to a network affiliated with al-Qaida who allegedly wanted to establish an Islamic state across Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines, an area home to about a quarter-billion Muslims. In Australia, Mueller held talks Tuesday with Prime Minister John Howard and other senior ministers. Earlier, he addressed a conference of U.S., British and New Zealand intelligence officers in New Zealand that the government kept secret until a day after it finished. Both Australia and New Zealand have committed elite commando units to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In Australia, Mueller warned that the U.S.-led action in Afghanistan should not prompt governments to let down their guard. "He made it clear that there are no grounds for thinking that the terrorist threat has disappeared," a spokesman for Howard was quoted as saying by AP on Wednesday. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage http://sports.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
