Global Terror Concerns Rise For Holidays

Australia is warning of possible terrorist attacks in Indonesia around Christmas.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says there has been information about "possible specific terrorist attacks."

Downer did not give details but said churches were among the places targeted in the past. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Authorities in Indonesia say they have no reason to believe terrorists are plotting attacks during the holiday but thousands of troops will be deployed to guard churches.

There have been terror attacks in Indonesia every year since 2002 but with no attack yet in 2006, some worry that another blast is imminent.

The holiday season has also brought concerns of a terror attack to India — specifically the popular coastal tourist region of Goa — where Israeli officials said they had "specific information that there is an intent of global jihad to attack".

Israel's Counterterrorism Bureau, gave the warning, which came with a travel advisory for its citizens and covered the rest of India as well, last week.

Britain didn't quite escape the holiday fear factor either, with rumors swirling of a Christmas attack in London, but no "specific threat" mentioned by the authorities.

London's top cop, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, said Friday that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups pose a greater threat to the British people than did the Germans during World War II or the Irish Republican Army at the height of the Troubles.

Blair told BBC's Radio 4, "the threat of another terrorist attempt is ever present. Christmas is a period when that might happen," but he added, "we have no specific intelligence to do (with) that."

"It is a far graver threat in terms of civilians than either the Cold War or the Second World War. It's a much graver threat than that posed by Irish Republican terrorism," Blair said.

The head of Britain's domestic spy agency, MI5, has said her agents are tracking almost 30 terrorist plots involving 1,600 suspects, and that at least five major terror plots had been thwarted since the July 2005 transit bomb attacks in London.

The multiple-bomb attack on London's public transport system on July 7 last year killed 52 people.

European fears that terrorists might be planning something come in the waning days of a convulsive year that saw terror schemes thwarted in Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic and Italy.

Islamic anger over the publication of cartoons depicting images of the Prophet Muhammad caused riots throughout the world in January and February, with some Muslim protesters in London holding up banners urging "Behead those that insult Islam." Pope Benedict XVI's Sept. 12 comments that seemed to equate Islam with violence also caused outrage and mass protests.

A senior French counterterrorism official told The Associated Press that intelligence agencies throughout the continent are on "tenterhooks" and that "all of the warning lights are red," though they have yet to uncover any specific plan for attack.

"The threat is at its highest level," said the French official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his job.