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.