Global Security Newswire

The Australian government in 2008 told members of an international export control group that the Southeast Asian extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah could pose a biological or chemical weapons threat, the Australian newspaper reported today (see GSN, Sept. 8, 2010).

Canberra told a Paris gathering of the Australia Group that while Jemaah Islamiyah preferred to use conventional arms, the organization "is resilient, patient and prepared to undertake organizational learning," according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic dispatch made available by the transparency organization WikiLeaks.

The 41-member Australia Group seeks to curb access to materials that could be used to build chemical and biological weapons.

The dispatches from the U.S. Embassy in Paris to Washington detail official worries over the growing production of biological and chemical materials in the Southeast Asian region where Jemaah Islamiyah operates. The group has been connected to terrorist attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people and has been linked to al-Qaeda.

"Australia noted that the region was a proliferation point for dual-use materials and technologies and potential terrorist access due to poor security," a leaked dispatch states. "One former JI operative reportedly was involved in al-Qaeda's CBW efforts, demonstrating the ability of groups to reach out to each other extremist groups in order to acquire relevant expertise."

Australian National University proliferation expert Ron Huisken said Canberra's 2008 worries still hold today. However, he emphasized that building an improvised biological or chemical weapon was "not that simple" and that conventional bombs would continue to be extremists' preferred attack instrument (Massola/Dodd, The Australian, Feb. 3).