- The Central Intelligence Agency issued an intelligence
report listing Bali among possible targets of a pending terrorist attack
just two weeks before the weekend's devastating Kuta bomb blast, the Washington
Post is reporting.
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- The warning was based on intercepted communications picked
up in late September, which signalled a strike against "a Western
tourist site". "Bali was mentioned in the US intelligence report,"
the paper says.
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- All information gathered by United States and Australian
intelligence agencies is shared between the countries. But the Prime Minister,
John Howard, said yesterday he had no knowledge of the US report.
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- The US embassy in Jakarta issued two travel notices,
on September 26 and October 10, warning Americans and other Westerners
to "avoid large gatherings and locations known to cater primarily
to a Western clientele, such as certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas".
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- The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs' most recent
travel advice before the attacks was on September 20. It urged Australians
to maintain high levels of personal security amid a risk of bomb explosions,
including in tourist areas, but said tourist services were "operating
normally" in Bali.
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- Mr Howard said the US report "hasn't been brought
to my attention, no. We had no warning of the specific attack that occurred.
There have been general warnings about the deteriorating security position,
the deteriorating terrorist position in Indonesia."
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- The official Australian death toll rose to 30 last night.
A further 180 people remain missing and 113 Australians have been injured.
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- The Federal Government had airlifted 86 injured people
from Bali by last night. Only seven patients remained in Darwin Hospital,
with the rest sent on to other capital city hospitals.
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- Ten patients, two of them in a critical condition, were
in Sydney hospitals. Fifteen critically injured people have been flown
from Darwin to other major centres, two of whom had since died.
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- In Bali, police said yesterday they were "intensively
questioning" two Indonesian men tracked down after one of their identity
cards was found near the site of the bomb blasts.
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- The Washington Post report did not specify whether the
communications were intercepted in Indonesia, where the Australian Defence
Signals Directorate has primary responsibility for eavesdropping, or as
part of the CIA's intelligence sweep across Asia and the Middle East.
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- Australian intelligence experts said the existence of
the advice would suggest a huge breakdown in the international intelligence
community before the Bali attack.
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- "It would be an unthinkable and unforgiveable failure
of the intelligence network," said Warren Reed, a former head of the
Indonesian desk of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.
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- "If the Americans had this information, they would
have passed it directly to us and others in the intelligence club."
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- The US ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer, said yesterday
he was not familiar with the reported US intelligence.
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- But a US embassy spokesman in Canberra said there was
no closer intelligence-sharing arrangement in the world than that between
the US and Australia. "It's a hand-in-glove arrangement ... I don't
think there's anything that hasn't been sent," he said.
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- Mr Howard defended Australia's consular warning to travellers
to Indonesia and Bali as "strong" and "quite strong".
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- Two days before the attack, the US issued a worldwide
warning notice again urging tourists to avoid "clubs, bars and restaurants"
where Westerners congregate. The Australian Government did not issue a
similar warning.
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- The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, rejected any
suggestion the Government could have done more to alert Australians to
the threat of a bombing.
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- However, questions over the adequacy of the intelligence
system before the bombing may be investigated by the Senate.
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- Greens Senator Bob Brown said he would support an inquiry
if there was sufficient evidence of intelligence failings.
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- He said the best time to think about constituting an
inquiry was in mid-November, when Parliament next sits. The Australian
Democrats and Labor said it was too early to consider an inquiry but did
not rule out their support.
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