Shipping prone to pirates, terror

Shipping prone to pirates, terror

Jane Macartney, Reuters, Singapore

Piracy is increasing, particularly in the busy, narrow
waterways of Southeast Asia, and international shipping presents
a vulnerable target for terror groups bent on mass damage,
maritime experts said on Wednesday.

Pirate attacks in the first nine months of last year hit a
record high, underscoring the need for more action to protect
shipping amid signs militants want to launch attacks from the
high seas, the experts told the Regional Outlook Forum 2004
organized by Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

"Given the vast scale and vulnerability of the global shipping
and cargo container industry, better security is vital when the
risk of weapons of mass destruction reaching international
terrorists is rising," said Michael Richardson of the ISEAS.

Over a quarter of the world's trade, half its oil and much of
its liquefied natural gas pass through the Strait of Malacca that
divides Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia and scene of operations
for the most dangerous and numerous pirates in the world.

In the first nine months of last year, the International
Maritime Board (IMB) recorded an all-time high if 344 attacks, of
which the highest number -- 87 -- were in Indonesia, IMB director
Captain Poggengal Mukundan told the conference.

"The potential danger of these vulnerable vessels with
volatile cargoes in the hands of pirates or other unauthorized
groups is a matter of some concern," Mukundan said.

Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed for the September
2001 attacks on New York and Washington, was already keenly aware
of the opportunity presented by shipping, Richardson said.

Associates of al Qaeda, including the Indonesian-based Jemaah
Islamiah (JI) group, were known to have planned such attacks
already, including ships in Singapore waters.

"It is clear that al Qaeda wants to disrupt the seaborne
trading system, the backbone of the modern global economy," said
Richardson.

"Building and detonating a radiological bomb or commandeering
ships and using them as weapons to attack key port cities,
straits or waterways are well within the capability of al Qaeda
or some of its affiliates, including JI," he said.

Boarding of vessels by extremists planning terror attacks
could be achieved not only through piracy but by more legitimate
means, Richardson said.

"Al Qaeda and its international affiliates could with relative
ease infiltrate the ranks of seafarers, most of them sourced from
Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia," he said.

Some experts say al Qaeda showed its nautical strategy and
sophisticated seaborne attack capability by bombing the Limburg
oil tanker off Yemen in 2002 and U.S. warship USS Cole in 2000.

The Malacca and Singapore Straits were the most vulnerable to
attack and the easiest for a terror group to block, said
Richardson, citing the enormous disruption to world commerce.

JI, whose goal is to create an Islamic state enveloping
Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the southern Philippines, has
been identified by experts as capable of hijacking a supertanker
and exploding it in the Malacca Strait.

As many as 50,000 ships use the waterway each year and any
blockage would force nearly half the world's fleet to sail
further, generating a substantial increase in the need for vessel
capacity, raising freight rates worldwide and jolting the
economies of China, Japan, South Korea and Japan that rely on
imported energy.

"A vessel could be used not only to transport a lethal cargo
but also as a bomb to attack a port city," said Rohan Gunaratna,
head of terror research at the Institute of Defense and Strategic
Studies in Singapore.

New rules to take effect this year could reduce the
vulnerability of shipping by including a requirement to engrave
the unique number of a vessel on the hull, thus making it harder
to disguise a hijacked ship, said the IMB's Mukundan.

Ships could carry tracking devices without the knowledge of
the crew, thus enabling them to be found and recovered, he said.

"We need to build on these strengths to deal with the
challenges of tomorrow which, in addition to piracy, include
other maritime crimes such as mass illegal immigration, smuggling
and the threat of maritime terrorism," said Mukundan.