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| Sunday, 16 June 2002 |
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Governments at sea over maritime terror threat BANGKOK, June 13 (Reuters) - Under cover of darkness and rough seas, a small band of militants boards a merchant ship carrying nuclear waste, and after a bloody gunfight makes off with enough plutonium for more than a dozen nuclear bombs. It's not the plot for this season's latest Hollywood action film. It's a nightmare scenario and not that far fetched. Denied access to embassies and airlines by new security measures, militant groups have boosted their maritime capabilities and are planning strikes on shipping, experts say. Authorities in Morocco said this week they had arrested three Saudis believed to be members of al Qaeda -- the militant network blamed for the September 11 attacks -- who were planning strikes on U.S. and British ships in the Straits of Gibraltar. And U.S. Customs announced a pilot project with Singapore to inspect U.S.-bound cargo containers on fears they could be used to smuggle nuclear or biological weapons to the United States. "It is a testament to the dimensions of the terror threat," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside al Qaeda: The global network of terror", published in the United States this week by Columbia University Press and by Hurst in Britain. Militant groups operate "on the principle of displacement" as do most organised crime syndicates, said Gunaratna, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. "When you hit them hard in one area, they pop up in another. In this case, the aviation industry has tightened security and because of that we have seen that terrorist groups are expressing an increased interest in exploring the maritime dimension," he told Reuters. NUCLEAR SHIPMENT In coming weeks, two British merchant ships will slip quietly out of a Japanese port bound for home carrying hundreds of kg (pounds) of weapons-useable plutonium in the form of MOX fuel -- a blend of uranium and plutonium oxides. Japan is insisting the fuel be returned to Britain after it was found that some data was falsified on a consignment in 1999. The ships' course over the six week voyage and the departure date are being kept secret. Keen not to provoke panic, Japanese authorities insist the convoy does not need a military escort. But analysts say it is in danger not only from the weather but also from militants keen to get their hands on nuclear materials. "There is some concern over the shipment of nuclear material from Japan to Britain, because they have used pre-9/11 security measures to evaluate the risk of terrorism that might affect that shipment," said Gunaratna. A powerful demonstration of the vulnerability of ships to attack by militant groups occurred in October 2000, when al Qaeda agents drew a small boat alongside the USS Cole in Aden, detonating a bomb that tore a hole in the side of the American warship and killed 17 sailors. In 1985, off the coast of Egypt, Palestinian gunmen seized the cruise ship Achille Lauro, killing one and taking more than 400 hostages. And the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka have a whole naval wing, the "Sea Tigers". SOFT TARGETS Maritime assets are "soft targets" when it comes to attacks by militant groups, say analysts. The technology needed -- mobile phones, GPS, and speedboats -- can be bought relatively cheaply and have been used for years by pirates raiding commercial ships. Southeast Asia is particularly at risk from sea-borne militant attacks, given the narrowness of its waterways and its susceptibility to piracy. A number of militant groups with cells in Southeast Asia have been developing maritime attack capabilities since the USS Cole incident, says Gunaratna. "Both al Qaeda and Hezbollah have expressed their interest in shipping by mounting surveillance of U.S. warships in the Malacca Strait," Gunaratna said. Only last month, an oil tanker was discovered abandoned in the Gulf of Thailand after being ransacked by pirates. "The frightening thing," said one Bangkok-based Asian diplomat, "is that it was missing for two full months." Aware of the growing threat to shipping, Asian navies have been boosting their capabilities, said Panitan Wattanyagorn, a defence expert at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "Quietly navies are preparing for operations other than war. A few years ago, special units were set up within the navies of many Asian armed forces to deal with incidents at sea, like piracy," he said. "Monitoring and suppressing terrorist activities is becoming one of their main activities." Militants have long wanted to get their hands on nuclear material and U.S. authorities this week said they had disrupted a plot to explode a "dirty bomb", a conventional explosive device wrapped in radioactive material, in the United States. Fears of such attacks fuel concern over shipments of nuclear waste and prompted the U.S. move to inspect ships in Singapore. "After the September 11 incidents, we beefed up security at airports and in aviation. Now we have to extend that to shipping and seaports," said a U.S. diplomat based in Bangkok. "U.S. Customs believe certain major ports in Asia may be targeted by terrorists as a way of shipping chemical, biological or nuclear weapons into the country." He said Singapore was one of 20 "megaports" through which almost 70 percent of U.S.-bound ocean cargo containers travel. "We hope to get Hong Kong, Thailand and others to join in and allow containers to be inspected," the official said. |
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