Terror Warning For Tsunami Area

The United Nations said Friday it had no plans to increase security in tsunami-battered Aceh, despite warnings that Islamic militants could be planning attacks on foreign aid workers.

Meanwhile, many donor nations have yet to pay their pledges for tsunami relief, a U.N. spokesman said.

Current security measures, are "adequate for the time being," said Hiro Ueki, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "We are aware of the environment in which we operate in."

The United Nations, which is coordinating relief efforts in Aceh, currently operates out of an open compound next to one of Banda Aceh's main hospitals, but has said it is planning to move to a more secure location at a local university.

Last weekend, Australia issued a warning about a possible terror attack by Islamic militants on aid workers in Aceh.

Al Qaeda-linked suicide car bombers have targeted Westerners in Indonesia three times in the past three years, most recently bombing the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in September 2004. Local and foreign governments have repeatedly warned that the militants are planning more attacks.

Several militant groups are assisting the relief efforts in Aceh, among them the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization. The group is alleged to have acted as a cover for al Qaeda operations in the Philippines. Indonesian hardline groups the Laskar Mujahidin and the Islamic Defenders' Front have also set up base in Aceh.

The province is also home to a three-decade long war between secessionist rebels and the government in which more than 10,000 people have been killed. Aid work has so far been unaffected by the conflict.

Indonesia's country director for the World Food Program, Mohamed Saleheen said the number of people the agency was feeding in Aceh could rise to as many as 790,000 people in the coming months. It is currently feeding some 350,000 people.

While the WFP and the U.N. Children's Fund are fully funded, the Office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Development Program — both crucial to rehabilitation and reconstruction in the 11 tsunami-ravaged countries — have received 65 percent and 54 percent respectively of their emergency relief needs for the next six months, Ueki said.

"There's still a very large amount of pledges yet to be paid," he said. "So far, there has been no direct impact (on operations), but we hope they will be fully funded."

U.N. data received by The Associated Press showed that the UNHCR requires $75.8 million while the UNDP needs $157 million.

Meanwhile, at a Tokyo conference, delegates studied Japan's coastal defenses and tsunami warning system, which detects underwater earthquakes, estimates their potential for generating tsunami and then gets that information quickly to residents in coastal areas through broadcasts, loudspeakers and the Internet.

"We have a tremendous resource here in Japan in dealing with tsunami at several levels," said Terry Jeggle, senior officer at U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, which is coordinating efforts to set up a warning system in southern Asia.

The number of dead and missing in the tsunami disaster continues to vary widely due to multiple agencies in some countries reporting different figures. In Indonesia, which accounts of about three-quarters of the victims, two different government agencies variously report the number of dead as 123,597 and 127,414, with between 113,937 and 116,368 missing. In Sri Lanka, the death toll ranges from 31,003 to 38,195, with about 5,000 listed as missing.

By Yeoh En Lai