More countries link communications systems vs terrorists

More Asian countries have agreed to link up to Interpol’s global police communications system and database designed to help capture terrorists and criminals prowling in disguise, officials said Wednesday.

Only half of the international police organization’s 181 member countries have hooked up to the Internet-based system since it was introduced one and a half years ago, but many Asian countries pledged to join at the end of a two-day regional security conference, Interpol secretary- general Ronald Noble said.

He did not give exact figures or identify the countries.

The conference, held in the aftermath of last week’s deadly Madrid bombings, focused on ways to improve the global war against terrorism by speeding up exchanges of information among countries that could thwart terrorist attacks or lead to the capture of would-be attackers, organizers said.

"Our goal is to connect as many countries as soon as possible," Noble told reporters. He said the communications system would give users access to an Interpol database that provides information on about 1.5 million stolen documents "which allow terrorists to move freely from one country to another."

Governments also can track smugglers, drug traffickers and members of organized crime better with the system, he said.

The database could be especially helpful to Southeast Asian countries battling an image of being a terrorist hotbed. A suspected al-Qaeda ally, Jemaah Islamiyah, has been blamed for numerous bombing attacks and plots in the region, including the 2002 bombings on Indonesia’s Bali island that killed 202 people.

"I think the information in Indonesia is not enough to dismantle the syndicate, so we need a lot of information from other countries," said Indonesian police official Tri Priyo. Indonesia subscribed to Interpol’s communications system last September, he said.

Noble said other projects under way include a database on people who have trained in suspected terrorist camps and a security alert system called the Orange Notice, in which each member country can alert others of potential criminal or terror threats.

He said that in the last 18 months, Interpol has identified 1,500 terror suspects with information that is now accessible through its network to police officials in member countries.

"The Madrid attacks are the reminder to the entire world, not just Europe, that these kinds of attacks can occur any day anywhere in the world, and we must try to prepare ourselves the best we can for them," Noble told reporters at the conference, attended by 125 delegates and observers from 36 countries. — Christina Mendez