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May 16, 2007
Cracks have emerged in the security shield being erected around Asian deepsea ports as evidence emerges that extremist organizations may be planning terrorist attacks on terminals and exposed container ships.
Five years of overhauling lax security have equipped only a small number of ports to detect potential threats, with the majority failing to enforce even rudimentary background checks on personnel or limit access to terminal facilities. The authoritative Israeli-based Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) has warned that al-Qaeda has a real capability of attacking maritime targets in Asia and identified ports as their soft underbelly. "They appear to have stayed at least one step ahead of the security services invoked thus far by modifying their recruitment and the organizational structure," noted researcher Akiva Lorenz. "It is only a matter of time until al-Qaeda once more will succeed in attacking the West. Maritime terrorism is positioned to be their method of choice." Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf Group, two Southeast Asian terrorist groups with close links to al-Qaeda, are known to have developed maritime capabilities, as has Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Much of the expertise acquired by Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah is believed to have been passed on by al-Qaeda's maritime-operations commander Abdul al-Rahim al-Nashiri before his capture in Aden in November 2002. Nashiri conceived the idea of using small craft packed with explosives to target US warships and was the mastermind of a suicide attack on the USS Cole in Aden in October 2000 that killed 17 American servicemen and injured another 37. The attack on the Cole, which was berthed in port while refueling, showed that vessels are largely defenseless to this type of threat, while intelligence services discovered they were facing an increasingly dispersed enemy. Devised at a safe house in Aden, the raid involved two operatives from Saudi Arabia who were briefed in Pakistan and given their final orders in Bangkok, where they also reportedly received about US$36,000 in financing. Osama bin Laden would later commemorate the bombing of the USS Cole with a morbid poem at his son's wedding: A destroyer: even the brave fear its might. It inspires horror in the harbor and in the open sea. She sails into the waves Flanked by arrogance, haughtiness and false power. To her doom she moves slowly A dinghy awaits her, riding the waves. In the subsequent two years before his capture, Nashiri drew up plans to launch small boats against US warships in the Strait of Hormuz after he was deterred by increased security in other busy shipping lanes such as off Aden and Gibraltar. "According to his interrogation, al-Nashiri planned to attack US navy ships with several speedboats launched from a mother vessel traveling on one of two 1-nautical-mile-wide channels," Lorenz reported. "The plan was to detonate the mother vessel once it passed any possible target. After a final intelligence review, al-Nashiri deemed the success of such a mission was unlikely and aborted its operation." Al-Qaeda later modified its strategy to use less direct attacks, with divers trained to plant explosives on the hulls of ships or ram them with swimmer delivery vehicles that had been turned into floating bombs. Another strategy had terrorists hijacking vessels for ransom or steering ships laden with bombs into specific targets in much the same manner as the airliners that were used to attack buildings in the US on September 11, 2001. One month before Nashiri's arrest, a small boat loaded with explosives was rammed into MV Limburg, a large crude-oil carrier being leased by state-owned Petronas of Malaysia, in a suicide attack in open seas outside Aden. There is evidence that Nashiri's strategy has been retained for future operations, possibly with the help of Asian terrorist organizations. In 2005, an Abu Sayyaf member, Angelo Gamal Baharan, was apprehended after undergoing scuba-diving training at Palwan, Philippines, for what he said was a planned operation in an unidentified country. According to the ICT, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had already reacted to the threat of underwater attacks by securing information in 2002 on about 2 million people who had learned to scuba-dive during the previous three years. Shipping companies and insurance agencies have countered the potential economic disaster of an attack on shipping in the congested Strait of Malacca and Strait of Hormuz by strengthening hulls and instituting protective measures on board vessels. But they have been less successful in changing the culture of complacency in ports, which handle millions of tons of cargo each year and collectively have to monitor more then 1.3 million seamen and longshoremen. At least 46,000 ships called at more than 4,000 ports worldwide and carried 7.1 billion tons of goods in 2006, including 15 million containers that made 230 million journeys. This constituted 85% of global trade volume. The International Maritime Organization launched an International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code) after the USS Cole attack, aiming to deny terrorists the means of accessing vessels and their loads. All ports and ships are required to meet minimum security procedures, including the installation of an automatic identification system that provides authorities with a vessel's identity, position, course and speed. When the code was implemented in 2004, only 53% of ships and 50% of ports were believed to be in full compliance. Although that proportion has since risen, there continues to be resistance from governments and shipowners alike because of the substantial cost. Ships that do not comply can be turned away by ports, but relatively few governments have chosen to enforce this provision. In any case, the code is only binding on vessels of 500 tons or more, which excludes thousands of smaller ships that operate in Asia. Another barrier is that the ISPS Code, like the complementary Container Security Initiative (CSI) and Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), is viewed as a US initiative tailored to protect US ports from offshore terrorism threats. The CSI, which was introduced in 2002, is a bilateral measure to detect potential threats to US ports by screening cargo at embarkation points through the forward deployment of American customs officials. Only about 40 ports worldwide are partners in the CSI, including 12 in Asia: Yokohama, Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe in Japan; Singapore; Hong Kong; Busan in South Korea; Port Klang and Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia; Laem Chabang in Thailand; Shanghai in China; and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Washington has hailed the initiative as a success, noting that 11 of the top 20 ports in terms of cargo containers shipped to the US are involved. But this perspective only reinforces the widespread belief that the CSI is designed to serve US interests by shifting the terrorism threat elsewhere. As it is a bilateral measure, the CSI is difficult to enforce, but the US nonetheless applies subtle pressure on ports and shipowners by dictating that cargo from countries outside the initiative be subjected to more thorough checks, often leading to long delays in processing. More than 45,000 companies have taken the hint and submitted to an examination of their cargo at the last port of embarkation before they reach US shores. There is similar skepticism over the PSI, designed to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction by allowing the warships of participating countries to board and, if necessary, seize vessels suspected of smuggling such arms. Of the 15 nations that have signed up, only two - Japan and Singapore - are in Asia. Notable absentees include China, South Korea and India, which all harbor doubts over the legality of the searches; Beijing and Seoul are especially worried over how North Korea might react if it became a target. As the PSI has no basis in international law, a ship can only be stopped in international waters when there is consent from the country where it is registered. Liberia, Panama and the Marshall Islands, the three main flags-of-convenience states, have signed the PSI. Beijing's mistrust dates back to an incident in 1993, a decade before the PSI came into operation, when the US tried to intercept the Chinese vessel Yinhe on suspicion that it was carrying thiodiglycol and thionyl chloride to Iran. The chemicals can be used to manufacture toxic agents. Eventually boarded in a Saudi port, the ship was found to be carrying a legitimate cargo. And South Korea was unnerved by an interdiction of the North Korean ship So San in 2002 by Spanish vessels - at the United States' request - that unearthed Scud missile parts hidden under cement. After finding they were to be delivered to Yemen, a key ally in anti-terrorism efforts, Washington allowed the parts to be delivered. When the PSI was set up shortly afterward, critics had plenty of ammunition to support their contention that the initiative, and other anti-terrorism measures aimed at preventing maritime attacks, were merely extensions of US foreign policies. ------------ About the author: M. H. Ahasan is a professional journalist from India. He is a writer, director and author of several publications and online mags across the world. Email: newscop@gmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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