Sydney, Mar 14: Australia, an ally of the United States in last year's invasion of Iraq, is tightening security measures to guard against attacks similar to last week's deadly blasts in Madrid. New South Wales, where Sydney, Australia's largest city, is located, has removed rubbish bins from railway stations and put curbs on the use of public lockers. It is also spending a 15 million (USD 11 million) to protect Sydney's drinking water from terrorists.

A tape purportedly from al-Qaeda said the Islamic militant group had placed bombs on trains in Madrid to retaliate for Spanish cooperation with the United States, Spanish officials said today.
At least 200 people were killed and 1,500 injured in Thursday's explosions.
Spain, like Australia, has supported the US-led invasion of Iraq.
A spokesman for Australian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson told today the federal government would coordinate with the states to examine ways to increase security on railways. An exercise would be staged in Sydney on Monday, while Australia's largest-ever counter-terrorism exercise would be conducted later this month, defence minister Robert Hill told Channel 7 today.
''We've (already) significantly increased our counter-terrorism capability. There's a lot of extra security of air transport and the like,'' he said.
New South Wales premier Bob Carr said that regular anti-terrorism exercises would be conducted in Sydney, with every person and building a potential target of attack.
''Police, fire brigades, ambulance crews are...ready for the event when it comes. It's a matter of when, not a matter of if,'' he told Radio 2GB. Australia has sent two federal police officers, one a forensic expert, the other a post-blast analyst, to Madrid to help investigate the bombings.
Australian Federal police commissioner Mick Keelty told Channel 9 that the technology used to detonate the explosives in Madrid was similar to the nightclub attack in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002, which killed 202 people, including 91 Australians.
Indonesia blamed the Bali bombing, until Madrid the worst such incident since the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States, on Jemaah Islamiah, a southeast Asian Muslim militant organisation linked to al-Qaeda.
Bureau Report