Terror on the high seas

Jill St. Claire's HomelandSecurityUS.NET

Terror on the high seas

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Piracy, these days, refers more often to digital miscreants who copy music and movies than to skull-and-bones derring-do on the high seas. But pirates of the old-fashioned variety, armed nowadays with automatic weapons, are not only a real and growing menace, they are also suspected of forging links with global terrorists. Governments and private shippers worldwide need to do more to secure their harbors, ships and sea lanes.
.
Thinly staffed tankers and container ships carrying valuable cargo are irresistible prey on the high seas, especially where pirates can count on lax policing or corrupt officials who turn a blind eye. The biggest problem is in Southeast Asia, particularly around Indonesia, where tankerloads of crude oil - and sometimes the ships themselves - are regularly stolen. Indeed, piracy has become one of globalization's most serious forms of organized crime, and a magnet for terrorists.
.
Al Qaeda, which attacked the U.S. destroyer Cole in 2000 and the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, is suspected to have owned its own vessels and to have planned attacks on Western ports. A hijacked ship carrying a nuclear weapon or radioactive "dirty bomb" could lay waste to a port, or block a crucial sea lane like the Straits of Malacca. That narrow channel between Malaysia and Indonesia is a vulnerable bottleneck to a quarter of the world's trade, and half of all oil flows. In one indication that terrorists might be preparing for such an attack, 10 armed men seized a tanker off Indonesia in March 2003 so they could learn to steer it - a frightening echo of the flying lessons taken by the Sept. 11 terrorists.
.
In response to Sept. 11, the 163 countries that belong to the International Maritime Organization agreed in 2002 to new measures like shipboard security officers, ship-to-shore alert systems and port security plans. It is likely, however, that many countries will fail to comply by the July 1 deadline or will prove unwilling to enforce the agreement. The United States now demands cargo and crew manifests from arriving vessels in advance. But securing vulnerable shipping lanes requires multilateral coordination. Last week, Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told a Congressional committee that the navy was considering armed patrols in the Straits of Malacca. American diplomats had to smooth ruffled feathers in Malaysia, whose government hadn't been consulted. The cost of failure in securing the high seas could be huge - shipping accounts for 80 percent of all trade, and a major terrorist attack that shuts down the maritime transport system would cripple the global economy.

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Piracy, these days, refers more often to digital miscreants who copy music and movies than to skull-and-bones derring-do on the high seas. But pirates of the old-fashioned variety, armed nowadays with automatic weapons, are not only a real and growing menace, they are also suspected of forging links with global terrorists. Governments and private shippers worldwide need to do more to secure their harbors, ships and sea lanes.
.
Thinly staffed tankers and container ships carrying valuable cargo are irresistible prey on the high seas, especially where pirates can count on lax policing or corrupt officials who turn a blind eye. The biggest problem is in Southeast Asia, particularly around Indonesia, where tankerloads of crude oil - and sometimes the ships themselves - are regularly stolen. Indeed, piracy has become one of globalization's most serious forms of organized crime, and a magnet for terrorists.
.
Al Qaeda, which attacked the U.S. destroyer Cole in 2000 and the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, is suspected to have owned its own vessels and to have planned attacks on Western ports. A hijacked ship carrying a nuclear weapon or radioactive "dirty bomb" could lay waste to a port, or block a crucial sea lane like the Straits of Malacca. That narrow channel between Malaysia and Indonesia is a vulnerable bottleneck to a quarter of the world's trade, and half of all oil flows. In one indication that terrorists might be preparing for such an attack, 10 armed men seized a tanker off Indonesia in March 2003 so they could learn to steer it - a frightening echo of the flying lessons taken by the Sept. 11 terrorists.
.
In response to Sept. 11, the 163 countries that belong to the International Maritime Organization agreed in 2002 to new measures like shipboard security officers, ship-to-shore alert systems and port security plans. It is likely, however, that many countries will fail to comply by the July 1 deadline or will prove unwilling to enforce the agreement. The United States now demands cargo and crew manifests from arriving vessels in advance. But securing vulnerable shipping lanes requires multilateral coordination. Last week, Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told a Congressional committee that the navy was considering armed patrols in the Straits of Malacca. American diplomats had to smooth ruffled feathers in Malaysia, whose government hadn't been consulted. The cost of failure in securing the high seas could be huge - shipping accounts for 80 percent of all trade, and a major terrorist attack that shuts down the maritime transport system would cripple the global economy.
Piracy, these days, refers more often to digital miscreants who copy music and movies than to skull-and-bones derring-do on the high seas. But pirates of the old-fashioned variety, armed nowadays with automatic weapons, are not only a real and growing menace, they are also suspected of forging links with global terrorists. Governments and private shippers worldwide need to do more to secure their harbors, ships and sea lanes.
.
Thinly staffed tankers and container ships carrying valuable cargo are irresistible prey on the high seas, especially where pirates can count on lax policing or corrupt officials who turn a blind eye. The biggest problem is in Southeast Asia, particularly around Indonesia, where tankerloads of crude oil - and sometimes the ships themselves - are regularly stolen. Indeed, piracy has become one of globalization's most serious forms of organized crime, and a magnet for terrorists.
.
Al Qaeda, which attacked the U.S. destroyer Cole in 2000 and the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, is suspected to have owned its own vessels and to have planned attacks on Western ports. A hijacked ship carrying a nuclear weapon or radioactive "dirty bomb" could lay waste to a port, or block a crucial sea lane like the Straits of Malacca. That narrow channel between Malaysia and Indonesia is a vulnerable bottleneck to a quarter of the world's trade, and half of all oil flows. In one indication that terrorists might be preparing for such an attack, 10 armed men seized a tanker off Indonesia in March 2003 so they could learn to steer it - a frightening echo of the flying lessons taken by the Sept. 11 terrorists.
.
In response to Sept. 11, the 163 countries that belong to the International Maritime Organization agreed in 2002 to new measures like shipboard security officers, ship-to-shore alert systems and port security plans. It is likely, however, that many countries will fail to comply by the July 1 deadline or will prove unwilling to enforce the agreement. The United States now demands cargo and crew manifests from arriving vessels in advance. But securing vulnerable shipping lanes requires multilateral coordination. Last week, Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told a Congressional committee that the navy was considering armed patrols in the Straits of Malacca. American diplomats had to smooth ruffled feathers in Malaysia, whose government hadn't been consulted. The cost of failure in securing the high seas could be huge - shipping accounts for 80 percent of all trade, and a major terrorist attack that shuts down the maritime transport system would cripple the global economy.
Piracy, these days, refers more often to digital miscreants who copy music and movies than to skull-and-bones derring-do on the high seas. But pirates of the old-fashioned variety, armed nowadays with automatic weapons, are not only a real and growing menace, they are also suspected of forging links with global terrorists. Governments and private shippers worldwide need to do more to secure their harbors, ships and sea lanes.
.
Thinly staffed tankers and container ships carrying valuable cargo are irresistible prey on the high seas, especially where pirates can count on lax policing or corrupt officials who turn a blind eye. The biggest problem is in Southeast Asia, particularly around Indonesia, where tankerloads of crude oil - and sometimes the ships themselves - are regularly stolen. Indeed, piracy has become one of globalization's most serious forms of organized crime, and a magnet for terrorists.
.
Al Qaeda, which attacked the U.S. destroyer Cole in 2000 and the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, is suspected to have owned its own vessels and to have planned attacks on Western ports. A hijacked ship carrying a nuclear weapon or radioactive "dirty bomb" could lay waste to a port, or block a crucial sea lane like the Straits of Malacca. That narrow channel between Malaysia and Indonesia is a vulnerable bottleneck to a quarter of the world's trade, and half of all oil flows. In one indication that terrorists might be preparing for such an attack, 10 armed men seized a tanker off Indonesia in March 2003 so they could learn to steer it - a frightening echo of the flying lessons taken by the Sept. 11 terrorists.
.
In response to Sept. 11, the 163 countries that belong to the International Maritime Organization agreed in 2002 to new measures like shipboard security officers, ship-to-shore alert systems and port security plans. It is likely, however, that many countries will fail to comply by the July 1 deadline or will prove unwilling to enforce the agreement. The United States now demands cargo and crew manifests from arriving vessels in advance. But securing vulnerable shipping lanes requires multilateral coordination. Last week, Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told a Congressional committee that the navy was considering armed patrols in the Straits of Malacca. American diplomats had to smooth ruffled feathers in Malaysia, whose government hadn't been consulted. The cost of failure in securing the high seas could be huge - shipping accounts for 80 percent of all trade, and a major terrorist attack that shuts down the maritime transport system would cripple the global economy.

Source:

http://www.iht.com/articles/514396.html