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Taming terror on the high
seas
By B Raman
The
attack, stated to be by al-Qaeda, on the US naval
ship USS Cole at Aden in October 2000, and the
subsequent investigation into that incident, gave
birth to concerns that international terrorists
might expand their acts of terrorism from the land
to the sea.
Groups of West Asia and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had
indulged in occasional acts of maritime aggression
even before October 2000, and the LTTE - through
its fleet of ships, ostensibly used for legitimate
commercial purposes - had been using the sea for
the clandestine transport of arms and ammunition
and other material required for its struggle on
land. However, such acts had limited tactical
objectives and did not think in terms of mass
casualties or mass damage to be inflicted on the
global economy as a whole.
The September
11, 2001, terrorist strikes and the precision and
evil ingenuity with which they were planned and
executed created a wave of alarm about the
likelihood of similar strikes on coastal and
maritime targets. Since September 11, there have
been few discussions, governmental or
non-governmental, on threats to national security
and international peace and security in which
possible threats from maritime terrorism do not
figure prominently. Post-September 11,
scenario-building exercises have invariably
included those involving possible catastrophic
acts of maritime terrorism. Four of these possible
scenarios are, or should be, of major concern to
national security managers:
First, terrorists hijacking a
huge oil or gas tanker and exploding it mid-sea or
in a major port in order to cause huge human,
material and environmental damage. There were 67
reported attacks on oil and gas tankers by pirates
during 2004. This despite stepped-up patrolling by
the navies of different countries. What pirates
with no ideological motive and no suicidal fervor
can do, ideologically driven suicide terrorists
can do with equal, if not greater, ease.
Second, terrorists hijacking
an oil or gas tanker or a bulk-carrier and
exploding it or scuttling it in maritime
choke-points, such as the Malacca Strait, to cause
a major disruption to energy supplies and global
trade. There were 52 reported attacks on bulk
carriers by pirates during 2004. If the pirates
can do this despite naval patrolling, so can
terrorists.
Third, terrorists smuggling
weapon-of-mass-destruction material, such as
radiological waste or lethal chemicals or even
biological weapons, in a container and detonating
it through a cellular phone as soon as the vessel
carrying the container reaches a major port.
Fourth, sea-borne terrorists
attacking a nuclear establishment, an oil refinery
or offshore oil platforms.
Maritime
counter-terrorism experts now look on the Bay of
Bengal and the Indian Ocean region as highly
vulnerable, if not the most vulnerable, to such
catastrophic acts of maritime terrorism. Among
factors influencing their perceptions are:
First, the presence in this region of
terrorist or insurgent organizations with proven
or suspected capabilities for maritime operations.
Among the organizations that come to mind are the
LTTE, with proven capabilities for maritime
operations, conventional as well as
unconventional; the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) of
Indonesia, with suspected capabilities for acts of
piracy to find funds for its land-based
operations; and the Abu Sayyaf of the southern
Philippines, with its proclaimed readiness to
extend its operations from the land to the sea.
Second, the wide networking of al-Qaeda
across this region - either through its own
members or through surrogate jihadi terrorist
organizations that are members or associates of
the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against
the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed by it
in 1998. The existence of this networking had been
suspected since the discovery of a Manila-based
plot under Ramzi Yousef in 1995 for spectacular
acts of terrorism directed at civil aviation.
Corroboratory details emerged after September 11,
particularly during the investigation of the Bali
explosion in October 2002.
Third, the long-known reputation of
this area as the world's leading producer and
supplier of heroin from the Golden Triangle and
the Golden Crescent and its recent emergence as a
producer and supplier of synthetic drugs. Drug
money, which was first allegedly used by the US
Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence for funding their
operations against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in
the 1980s, has since become an important source of
revenue for insurgent and terrorist organizations
in Latin American and Asia. Among organizations in
the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean region that
are known or suspected to be using drug money to
finance their operations are Hamas, Hezbollah,
al-Qaeda, the various Pakistani jihadi
organizations, the LTTE, the United Wa State Army
of Myanmar and the jihadi terrorist organizations
of the southern Philippines.
Fourth, the continuing availability in
this region - in Pakistan as well as in Thailand,
Laos and Cambodia - of large quantities of arms
and ammunition to anyone with the means to pay for
them and with the capability for their clandestine
transport to areas of intended use.
Fifth, the presence in this region of
terrorist organizations, such as the LTTE, with a
commercial shipping capability that can be
diverted for the clandestine transport of
narcotics and arms and ammunition.
Sixth, the presence in this region of
transnational mafia groups, such as the one headed
by Indian Dawood Ibrahim, with vast financial
resources, a capability for clandestine shipping
and a willingness to place their resources and
shipping at the disposal of al-Qaeda and other
jihadi terrorist organizations operating across
the region.
Seventh, the long-known (to India), but
only recently admitted role of Pakistan as the
region's leading supermarket for nuclear
weapons-capable material and equipment and the
nexus of some of its scientists, enjoying the
protection of its army, with al-Qaeda and other
jihadi terrorist organizations.
Eighth, the presence in this region of
tempting choke-points, such as the oft-mentioned
Malacca Strait, through which approximately half
of the world's oil and a third of its trade
passes. There is a large volume of container
traffic originating in this rapidly developing
region. It has been estimated that 48% of the
global container traffic passes through this
region.
Ninth, the reputation of this area as
one of the most piracy-prone in the world. Pirate
attacks tripled between 1993 and 2003. The Piracy
Reporting Center of the International Maritime
Bureau (IMB) stated in 2004 that most pirate
attacks in that year occurred in Indonesian waters
(70 of 251 reported attacks). Of these attacks, a
majority occurred in the Malacca Strait. The IMB
also stated that of the attacks in 2004, oil and
gas tankers and bulk carriers were the most
popular targets, with 67 attacks on tankers and 52
on bulk carriers. Though there was a 27% global
decline in 2004, the number of attacks was still
high at 325 as against 445 in 2003. Despite the
global decline in the number of reported attacks,
the number of raids in the Malacca Strait
increased last year to 37 from 28 in 2003.
There is reported to be evidence that many
of the raids have been the work of the Free Aceh
Movement of northern Sumatra, an Islamist
separatist organization fighting for independence
from Indonesia. There has been an increase in the
tactical sophistication of pirates, some of whom
deploy several fast boats for a single attack and
use machine guns and anti-tank missiles to force
bulk carriers to stop.
In March 2003, a
chemical tanker called Dewi Madrim was attacked by
heavily armed pirates in the Malacca Strait.
According to the crew, the pirates, speaking
Indonesian, seemed less interested in robbery than
in taking turns in steering the ship down the
congested waterway. They took two officers hostage
and stole many technical documents. Following this
incident, Singapore's then-defense minister and
deputy prime minister, Tony Tan, said he was
concerned this incident and others like it were
practice runs for a terrorist attack.
He
warned: "Piracy is entering a new phase; recent
attacks have been conducted with almost military
precision. The perpetrators are well-trained, have
well laid out plans." Time magazine has quoted him
as saying, "The increased frequency of piracy
attacks, the changing pattern of how the attacks
are carried out, lead us to fear the worst, that
an operation is being planned, the preliminary
preparation is taking place, and the vessels are
being readied."
The IMB has been quoted by
the media as saying that pirates now break into
freight companies' computer systems, change order
forms, arrange for changes in shipping, and then
intercept the shipment. This is especially a
problem in the South China Sea and around
Indonesia. The total damage caused by piracy, due
to losses of ships and cargo and to rising
insurance costs, is estimated at US$16 billion per
year. There is still no conclusive evidence of the
nexus of any group of pirates with terrorist
organizations, but fears that the pirates of today
may turn into accomplices or mentors of terrorists
of tomorrow strongly influence threat perceptions.
Tenth, the presence of a large number
of uninhabited islands in the region, which serve
as sanctuaries and operational bases for today's
pirates and could similarly serve the terrorists
of tomorrow.
While there are thus growing
concerns over the likelihood of catastrophic acts
of maritime terrorism, it needs to be underlined
that there is no unanimity among counter-terrorism
analysts about the magnitude of the threat.
Skeptics feel that while the possibility of
catastrophic acts of maritime terrorism has to be
taken seriously, one has to keep in mind that
there has been a certain over-projection and
over-dramatization of the threat by embedded
analysts of the US in order to serve that
country's own strategic objectives in the region.
There is similar skepticism in certain circles
regarding the correctness of the statistics
relating to piracy attacks. It is alleged that
often trivial incidents and instances of
misappropriation or theft of goods by the crew of
ships are reported as piracy attacks.
On
December 9, 2004, the Bernama news agency of
Jakarta quoted Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the
Malaysian deputy prime minister who also holds the
defense portfolio, and General Endriartono
Sutarto, chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces, as
claiming that the piracy threat in the Malacca
Strait was not as serious as depicted by cases
reported to the IMB. They alleged that many cases
reported to the IMB had nothing to do with pirate
attacks on merchant ships using the strait. Datuk
Seri Najib said: "Of the 25 cases reported, only
one had any real connection with piracy while the
rest were minor cases which only involved ships'
crews. These were cases of extortion, thefts and
loss of wallets among them (crews)." They said
that piracy cases reported needed to be
re-categorized to give a truer picture of the
situation instead of lumping them with minor
incidents that had nothing to do with piracy. A
similar view prevails in Bangladesh.
At a
workshop on maritime counter-terrorism organized
under the International Terrorism Watch Project of
the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) at New
Delhi in November 2004, some participants stressed
the need for a correct definition of piracy in
order to weed out a large number of instances of
trivial reporting.
Despite such misgivings
among sections of policymakers, senior
intelligence officials of the countries in the
region take seriously the possibility of a major
act of maritime terrorism in the region. According
to them, terrorist organizations active in the
region had contemplated such acts in the past,
though they might not have carried them out. In
August last year, the Jakarta Post quoted
Hendropriyono, of Indonesia's State Intelligence
Agency, as saying, "Senior Jemaah Islamiyah
terrorists now in detention have admitted that
attacks on Malacca shipping traffic have been
contemplated in the recent past."
The
growing concern over the likelihood of a
catastrophic act of maritime terrorism has led to
measures for increasing physical security. Among
such measures, one could cite the coordinated
patrolling of the Malacca Strait by the navies of
Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia since July last
year; the move to bring the Thai navy into these
coordinated patrolling arrangements; the reported
moves for similar coordinated patrolling by the
navies of India, Thailand and Indonesia in the
Andaman Sea area; the strict enforcement of the
International Ship and Port Facility Security Code
adopted in December 2002, which went into effect
globally in July 2004; and attempts toward a
similar strict enforcement of the Container
Security Initiative.
The concern is also
reflected in the frequent joint exercises by the
navies of the region, with maritime
counter-terrorism as an important objective of the
exercises, and the large number of conferences and
seminars held on the subject in the countries of
the region during the last two years. The role of
non-governmental experts in creating a better
awareness of the threat and in proposing measures
for meeting it has also been increasingly
recognized. An important suggestion made by John
McFarlane of the Australian Chapter of the Council
on Security Cooperation, Asia-Pacific (CSCAP)
during the workshop on this subject organized by
the ORF at New Delhi in November 2004, was for
participants in the workshop to constitute
themselves into a virtual maritime
counter-terrorism think-tank so they could
continuously brain-storm on this subject across
the global Internet network instead of restricting
their interactions to conferences, seminars and
workshops.
P S Suryanarayana, the
Singapore correspondent for The Hindu, the
prestigious daily of Chennai, reported as follows
on May 31:
"A significant proposal came up
during the International Maritime Defense
Exhibition (IMDEX) held in Singapore in mid-May.
Singapore Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean
suggested that the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF) could
consider moving beyond discussions on maritime
security to work towards a maritime security
exercise in the near future. For the first time,
an anti-terror maritime security exercise was
held as an event directly related to IMDEX.
India, Australia and Japan, besides Singapore,
were among the regional powers that participated
in the naval exercise, deploying some of their
state-of-the-art warships that had come for the
main exhibition." At the same time,
the still lingering misgivings that the threat is
being magnified by the US to serve its strategic
objectives in the region have come in the way of
regional countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia
agreeing to a greater participation by the US in
the regional initiatives, such as joint or
coordinated patrolling of the Malacca Strait.
Their contention is that any such US participation
or assistance should be at their insistence, when
they feel the need for it, and not at the
insistence of the US. These misgivings have also
come in the way of regional acceptance of the
US-proposed Regional Maritime Security Initiative
(RMSI).
Among the countries of the region,
the policy-making circles of India, Singapore,
Malaysia, Japan and Australia have shown the
greatest awareness of the threat of catastrophic
maritime terrorism and the need to develop the
required maritime counter-terrorism capabilities,
individually as well as through mutual assistance.
The policy-making circles of Indonesia, too, have
shown a considerable awareness of the threat, but
their capability to translate this awareness into
the required action is still weak. In the case of
maritime terrorism, as in the case of land-based
terrorism, Bangladesh continues to be in a denial
mode - showing neither an awareness nor a
willingness to cooperate with others.
The
December 2004 tsunami disaster in the region led
to a two-month lull in the activities of the
pirates. Their activities have resumed since
March. The lull could be attributed to the
presence and movement of a large number of naval
ships of different countries carrying humanitarian
relief in the region and the total disruption of
life in the coastal maritime communities of
Sumatra, which provides the recruits, helpers and
other accomplices for pirate syndicates. This
underlines the importance of intensive naval
patrolling and aerial surveillance over the high
seas and effective monitoring of the coastal
maritime communities in any maritime
counter-terrorism initiative.
While
considerable attention has already been paid to
the physical security aspect of maritime
counter-terrorism, similar attention does not
appear to have been paid to the intelligence
collection and analysis aspect. What kind of
capabilities do the regional countries have at
present? How adequate or inadequate are they? How
to remove the inadequacies? These questions have
not been addressed in public. Nor were they
addressed in private during the deliberations in
2000 of the special task force set up by the
government of India to revamp the intelligence
apparatus. One does not know whether they have
since been addressed in the policy-making circles
of the Indian government.
The
post-September 11 international cooperation
against terrorism has led to the mushrooming of
joint counter-terrorism working groups involving
India and other countries. One does not even know
whether the maritime counter-terrorism experts of
the navy and the Coast Guard are represented in
such working groups. In the media reports on the
meetings of such working groups, one hardly finds
any reference to maritime counter-terrorism.
In land-based terrorism, the police are
the weapon of first resort and the army the weapon
of last resort, except in border areas, where one
faces the problem of cross-border infiltration of
terrorists. In maritime counter-terrorism in the
high seas, the navy, including the Coast Guard,
has to be the weapon of first resort, aided by
others such as the air force, the coastal police
and the civilian intelligence agencies.
There is an urgent need for a
comprehensive approach to maritime
counter-terrorism covering the various dimensions
of it, such as intelligence collection, analysis,
assessment and dissemination; the need to
strengthen the capability for the collection of
technical intelligence relating to maritime
terrorism through monitoring stations on the coast
and the islands as well as sea-based monitoring
platforms; port security; strengthening coastal
patrolling in the vicinity of sensitive
establishments, such as nuclear installations, oil
refineries and off-shore oil platforms; intensive
naval patrolling in the high seas; monitoring
developments in coastal maritime communities; a
rapid action capability to deal with a maritime
situation if preventive measures fail; a crisis
management capability; and regional and
international cooperation.
B
Raman is additional secretary (retired),
cabinet secretariat, government of India, New
Delhi, and, presently, director, Institute for
Topical Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow
and convener, Observer Research Foundation,
Chennai Chapter. Email: itschen36@gmail.com
(Copyright 2005 B Raman)
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