Additional terrorist attacks are "inevitable" in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer says.  

Downer spoke Wednesday at the opening of an anti-terrorism conference on the bomb-scarred tourist island of Bali.

He said terrorists were actively training, recruiting and using "legitimate fronts to pursue barbaric ends."

"Terrorist groups are cooperating across the region, transiting borders using one country to train in, another to raise funds in and another for safe haven. They are working together to maximize the impact of their activities," Alexander Downer said.

Combating the al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah topped the agenda at the two-day regional conference attended by ministers and senior officials from 33 countries, including US Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The countries are expected to bolster cooperation in intelligence gathering and offer new anti-terror aid for developing countries like Indonesia.

It's unlikely they'll sign any comprehensive agreements that would enable them to move beyond the two-way pacts that have damaged Jemaah Islamiyah, but failed to defeat it.

Critics say mutual suspicions have prevented the creation of region-wide mechanisms, such as a multinational police force.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri told the conference delegates that "wider and more effective cooperation" has now become "our common duty."

"This solid coordination mechanism is necessary, for only in this way would we be able to penetrate into the terrorist network and cells that are neatly, tightly and closely built," she said.

Downer announced the opening of a transnational crime center in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Run jointly by Indonesia and Australia, it will offer anti-terror training and be an information clearinghouse.

The center will foster anti-terrorism technical skills like "forensic training, strike forces, bomb disposal units and training, response training for sabotage and hostage-taking," said Bali's police chief, Inspector-General I Made Mangku Pastika.

Also Wednesday, Indonesia and Australia signed an accord on the exchange of financial intelligence to fight money laundering -- the latest of nine anti-terror agreements signed between the two countries.

Hundreds of police and troops patrolled near the conference at Bali's Grand Hyatt beach resort, with a police ship just off the coast. Bali was the site of the October 12, 2002 twin nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian tourists.

The attack inspired Australia and Indonesia to propose Bali as the venue for the anti-terror conference.

"This despicable act has now done nothing but awaken the world and increase the awareness that the threat of terror has spread to all corners of the earth," Megawati said of the Bali attack.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been the target of numerous terror attacks.

Jemaah Islamiyah was blamed for both the Bali attack and the August 5, 2003 bombing that killed 12 people at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.

"More attacks that threaten the safety and security of our citizens are inevitable," Downer said.

"In our region collectively we have disrupted the Jemaah Islamiyah network through the capture and detention of well over 200 JI members, but we have not disabled it. Key operatives are still at large and JI remains highly resilient and committed to its cause.

"It is planning for the long term, actively training and recruiting young men as the next generation of leaders," he said, adding that terrorists are employing "false identities, money laundering, fraud and extortion as tools of the trade."

Regional intelligence officials say raids and arrests have damaged the group, but it remains dangerous -- partly because it's been broken into isolated cells willing to lash out on their own.

Jemaah Islamiyah's operatives are reportedly finding recruits with ease at mosques and other Islamic institutions, playing on Muslims' suspicions of the West and their feelings that the Iraq and Afghan wars are campaigns to destroy Islam.

"What remains is their fanaticism -- that won't change," said Rodolfo Mendoza, a senior Philippine police official. "There is tactical dislocation but they will look for a day when they can come back and plan for something bigger. They want to surpass 9/11."

Jemaah Islamiyah has an estimated 2,000 operatives on the run throughout Southeast Asia. They include bombing suspects Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top, plus an Afghan-trained militant named Zulkarnaen, whom authorities say has replaced Hambali -- the group's captured former operations chief.

(China Daily February 5, 2004)