A confidential report obtained exclusively by The Asian Pacific Post reveals American spies had predicted Bali resorts were the targets of Islamic radicals, months before the bombings on the Indonesian holiday island killed 202 people. But the spies did not want the public to know what they had learned.

By Asian Pacific News Service

American spies identified two Bali resorts as terror targets months before Islamic radicals bombed two neighbouring nightspots and killed over 200 people on the Indonesian holiday island last year, confidential documents obtained exclusively by The Asian Pacific Post show.

Both identified targets were located close to Paddy's Bar and the Sari Club which were destroyed by the terrorists using car bombs last October. Among the dead were 88 Australians.

The startling revelation that the Americans predicted the targets with uncanny precision and shared their intelligence with allies is expected to fuel an ongoing firestorm of protest in Australia, where the government is being accused of not doing enough to warn travellers.

The two resorts on Bali's Kuta tourist strip were among six targets in Indonesia that were put on a list compiled jointly by experts from the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the U.S. Army Engineering Corps, the U.S. Military Intelligence, the U.S. State Department and a variety of academic, security and intelligence consultants.

A partial list of the Indonesian targets provided to The Asian Pacific Post identified the Sahid Bali Seaside Resort on Kuta Beach and the Hard Rock Hotel in Bali as targets.

The Sahid Bali Seaside Resort, which is less than 500 metres from ground zero, was slightly damaged in the October bombings.

The American report called Combined Analysis of Potential Foreign Strike Zones, was completed in September 2002 and also identified potential terror targets in seven other countries, including Canada, Britain, Germany, the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia and Israel.

Intelligence data, according to the report, was obtained from agencies specialising in interception of communications, suspect interrogation and from special teams maintaining surveillance operations on terror groups around the world.

The executive overview of the report warns against any public release of the document as it would create "misdirected liability, public hostility and mass anxiety."

The report is meant to be shared with allies via U.S. liaison officers to improve goodwill and cooperation in the listed target zones.

The list of Canadian targets from the same report was leaked last year when U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell visited Ottawa.

But this is the first time other sections of the report which show the intelligence was shared with American allies, including the Australian government, is being made public.

It comes as the Australian government fights growing criticism over claims it failed to warn travellers of intelligence reports identifying Bali as a terrorist target.

Dennis Richardson, director of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization (ASIO), told a Senate inquiry last week that his agency identified the danger posed by the group Jemaah Islamiyah "too late" to prevent the bombings in Bali.

Richardson was speaking at a Senate inquiry into claims the Australian government failed to pass on intelligence reports prior to the October bombing that identified Bali as a prime target for Islamic radicals linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. The ASIO chief admitted that his agency assessed the threat to tourist sites in Bali as high, a year before the October bombings, but said it had no specific warning about the attacks.

His testimony came in the wake of Australian Prime Minister John Howard telling reporters last week : "We didn't have any warning of the Bali attack, please believe that."

"Do you think if we had warning of it we'd have done nothing about it We didn't, and all Australians should know that," he said.

Howard insisted no specific threat to the tourist island had been identified.

The Bali issue resurfaced last week as Australia's intelligence services and the country's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) clashed over the lack of warnings to Australians before the Bali bombings.

The man who offered a threat assessment on Bali to the Howard government prior to the bombings - David Farmer of the Australian Office of National Assessments , took umbrage last week at suggestions that his advice were merely "speculative possibilities".

"It was a considered analysis of all the information available. That's not speculation," Farmer was quoted in Australian media as saying.

"We described Bali and the reasons why Bali might be a target, and then went on to explain what potential targets in Bali there would be. Those potential targets included nightclubs, hotels and airports."

Although it could not ascertained if Farmer was privy to the American report listing the potential terror targets, his statements mirror it's contents.

A section of the confidential report obtained by The Asian Pacific Post states that targets, including those in Bali, had been determined and prioritized based on location, symbolic status, psychological threat profiling and weapons and explosives availability.

In Section 19 of the report the analysts identify the threat to what is termed as "secondary foreign vacation zones." These locations are independent targets due to the high numbers of tourists from initial target zones, the analysts conclude. The targets include hotels, event locations and entertainment outlets.

The report recommended a general tourism alert with limited specifics to reduce the economic impact on tourism.

The Australian Senate committee investigating the bombings has accepted that there was no specific intelligence warning of the Bali attacks but is investigating whether the Howard Government could have done more with its travel advisories, given the intelligence assessments.

Australian government officials have passionately rejected the suggestion they could have done more.

"We did not fail to put such information [indicating a possible Bali attack] in the public domain, because there was no such information or analysis available to the Government," an Australian official told the inquiry.