Australia, South-east Asia need to 're-double' efforts to avoid Paris-style attacks

A pedestrian with an umbrella pauses in front of the memorial of candles and flowers for the victims of the Nov 13 Paris attacks, on Place de la Republique in Paris, France, on Nov 24, 2015. 

PHOTO: EPA

DEC 9, 20151:14 PM

[SINGAPORE] Australia and South-east Asia must re-double efforts to share intelligence and make sure Paris-style terror attacks can't be replicated in the region, Australian Justice Minister Michael Keenan said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of Indonesian Islamic State sympathisers and some Malaysians and Singaporeans are believed to have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq.

South-east Asia faces the risk of attack when they return, Malaysia has said. "The fact that the national security situation has significantly deteriorated for all of the countries in the region, including Australia, means we need to re-double those efforts," Mr Keenan, who is also Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Counter Terrorism, told Reuters in an interview in Singapore.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deaths of 130 people in attacks in Paris last month, the deadliest in France since World War II.

Mr Keenan also denounced comments by US Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump who has called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States following last week's massacre in San Bernardino, California, by a Muslim couple.

"That is entirely the wrong response," Mr Keenan said. "When we look at South-east Asia, we get a good example that we are not somehow at war with a particular religion. And neither do we need to target Muslim Australians or anywhere else in the world."

Australia next week marks the anniversary of a siege in central Sydney in which a gunman with radical Islamist sympathies took over a central city cafe. Two hostages and the gunman were killed when police stormed the building.

REUTERS