Australian police said today they were stepping up counter-terrorism security ahead of the election next month.
Hours later, a huge car bomb exploded outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the bomb was "clearly a terrorist attack" aimed at Australia, one of the first to commit troops to the US-led war in Iraq.
Mass casualty disaster teams and six ambulance trucks have been assigned to strengthen security in Australia's most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), ahead of the polls on October 9th. Rescue squads of doctors, engineers and police are on standby.
A 24-hour police operations centre in Sydney, set up to monitor security at the 2000 Olympics, is to reopen one week ahead of the election. The opposition Labor party has promised to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq by Christmas if it wins office.
"I don't want people to be unnecessarily concerned. There has been no specific threat to citizens from any terrorist group," NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said in a statement. "The national threat level remains at medium and it is unlikely to rise without a specific threat."
Conservative Prime Minister John Howard is campaigning for a fourth consecutive term on a platform of security and a booming economy. He insists Australian troops will stay in Iraq until their job was done.
Australia still has around 850 military personnel, down from 2,000 deployed last year, in Iraq and the Gulf region.
Former US counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke has warned Australia it was more at risk of a Madrid-style attack during its election campaign than the United States, its key ally, because of the parties' differing policies on keeping troops in Iraq.