SINGAPORE, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Non-traditional threats to security in the Asia-Pacific region had taken the center stage of the 16th Shangri-La Dialogue which concluded here on Sunday, with participants calling for concerted efforts to address them.
At the three-day dialogue which opened on Friday evening, defense ministers, officials and experts from Asia-Pacific countries shared the same view that terror threat is on the rise and spreading, members of extremist groups are sneaking into the region and large-scale cyber attacks are nothing new.
TERROR THREAT ON RISE AND SPREADING IN ASIA-PACIFIC
As Europe has become a frequent target of terror attacks in recent years, a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific have also fallen victim, including Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Afghanistan.
The car bomb explosion targeting government buildings and foreign embassies in central Kabul on May 31 left at least 90 people dead and 400 others injured.
The deadly attack targeting the convoy of Pakistani Senate's Deputy Chairman Molana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri in southwestern province of Balochistan killed at least 25 and inured 35 others on May 12.
These incidents have underscored the severity of terrorism in the region. It also tells that no country in the region can assume it will be spared from terror attacks.
In a plenary speech at the security forum on Sunday, Singaporean Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said: "Closer to home, terrorism is our biggest security concern in Southeast Asia" and the threat in the region has heightened, including for Singapore, and is likely to worsen.
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