Malacca Strait free of terrorism, say experts

Malacca Strait free of terrorism, say experts

Associated Press
Kuala Lumpur

Despite growing fears of a "9/11 at sea" that could cripple
trade, terrorists have not yet established links with pirates in
the Straits of Malacca, one of the world's most vital waterways,
experts and officials said on Tuesday.

The assertions, made at a meeting of law enforcement
officials, shipping executives and diplomats from 33 countries,
came a week after a visit by the top U.S. commander in the
Pacific to seek closer cooperation in protecting the bottleneck
that carries one-third of the world's trade.

"Ensuring a safe maritime environment is a prerequisite for
continued economic growth in the region," Chia Kwang Chye,
Malaysia's deputy minister for internal security, said in a
keynote address to the two-day meeting sponsored by the
International Maritime Bureau.

The Straits of Malacca are the maritime lifeline of East Asia
- including for oil from the Middle East, and goods bound for
Europe - with some 50,000 ships plying the narrow waters between
Malaysia and Singapore on one side and the Indonesian island of
Sumatra on the other.

The straits have long been rife with piracy. Ships are
attacked, robbed and sometimes seized by bandits on speedboats,
especially from the Indonesian side, which has been hurt by
economic crisis and separatist rebellion in the Sumatran province
of Aceh in recent years.

The Kuala Lumpur-based bureau, which tracks piracy worldwide,
is hosting the tri-annual meeting amid new worries that
terrorists could sink a vessel in the strait to paralyze
shipping, or ram and explode a hijacked ship into an industrial
area to cause spectacular damage.

Andrew Linington, representative of a 19,000-member British
seafarers' union, said that the real fear was that the ease of
piracy would encourage terrorists that shipping was easy prey.

"We could have a 9/11 at sea," Linington said.

But experts and officials said there was no evidence yet that
pirates and terrorists were working together.

Pirates are traditionally local people motivated by economic
gain and share few interests with terrorists in the Malacca
Straits or the Horn of Africa, another trouble spot, said Brian
Jenkins, a terrorism adviser to the International Chamber of
Commerce, the bureau's parent organization.

"Terrorists are determined to carry out very dramatic
incidents that would in fact bring down a great deal of heat on
the local population and disrupt what is a lucrative business,"
Jenkins said.

Piracy is a worsening problem in its own right, said P.
Mukundan, director of the chamber. The number of incidents
worldwide rose from 370 in 2002 to 445 last year, with some 20
percent in Indonesian waters.

Shipowners would welcome patrols by the United States or other
navies - "the more patrols we have ... the better it is,"
Mukundan said.