22 February 2006 – etravelblackboard.com – Rocket attacks on commercial airliners are among the biggest terror risks facing the Pacific Rim, prompting a threat review by countries in the region, the Philippine external security chief has said.

"Our airports are not safe," Benjamin Defensor, chairman of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) counter-terrorism task force, told a briefing for foreign journalists in Manila on the 21st of February.

A shoulder-fired rocket was supposed to be an air defence weapon, said Defensor, a former head of the Philippine army. "But it can also be used against commercial aircraft carrying civilians," he said. "That is the bigger threat we have found."

Defensor said all 21 members of APEC -- which includes the United States, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, Australia and Canada -- were checking at least one of their major airports for weaknesses and would report back by the end of this year.

Large concentrations of people had sprung up around airports across Asia, putting residents at risk from rocket attacks as planes take off and land, he said.

"Are we going to say that we will prevent people from going to where the aircraft are, as they have done in Los Angeles?" Defensor said. "These are the things that will form part of our analysis and we will make a proper recommendation."

The traffic of militants was heaviest along the Pacific Rim's maritime borders but he warned that the Philippines, fighting a Muslim insurgency in the south, did not have the equipment to adequately monitor movements among its 7,100 islands.

"We have to make do with what we have," he said. "We do not have fighter jets. We do not have the radar we are looking for."

At more than 36,000 km long, the Philippine coastline is seen as a weak link in the Asian war on terror, allowing the regional network Jemaah Islamiah to keep close links with local Muslim rebels on the southern island of Mindanao.

The Philippines, Washington's closest security partner in the region, is on high alert this week for attacks to coincide with the anniversary of last year's Valentine's Day bombings by Abu Sayyaf guerrillas that killed 12 people.