Mean Acts of Islamic Terrorism on Mighty Oceans

8/6/2019 Mean Acts of Islamic Terrorism on Mighty Oceans

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MEAN ACTS OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM ON MIGHTY

OCEANS

By Sujit Das

In todays scenario, the invaluable service provided by Commercial Shipping to the society

and to the nations across the globe cannot be overlooked. It is the main artery that advances

the world commerce. Modern economies cannot exist without a well organizedand efficient merchant cargo fleet, because it is the cheapest mode oftransport.

From the early beginning shipping is a risky venture. In addition to thelong monotonous sailing for months together, there are threats oftyphoon, piracy, sinking etc. Piracy has existed almost as long as shippingand trade. Along the way, piracy came to be seen as an interestinghistorical problem associated with skull and crossbones flag, galleons ofgold and villains carrying cutlasses. It was even perceived with a dash ofexcitement and even romance as depicted in the movie, Pirates of theCaribbean.

Since last few decades, the Muslim terrorists are slowly taking over theroles of the historical pirates with same coarseness but with modernweaponry and deep hatred for the mankind in their mind. The Islamicterrorism acts are increasing in number and brutality day by day. Todayno corner of the world is safe from Muslim terrorists.

Several recent acts brought to light the renewed intensity of danger facedby the ships and people on board. Few major terrorism incidents on highseas are as follows,

1. Attack onAchille Lauro (7th October, 1985)

The brave Israeli commandos carried out a raid on the head quarters ofthe Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Tunisia on 1st October,1985 and killed 73 Arab terrorists. PLO wanted revenge of this shamefuldefeat and planned for a terrorist attack on the cruise shipAchille Lauro.

To execute the attack successfully, a member of PLO, using a fake Greekpassport, took a voyage onAchille Lauro to examine the securityarrangements on board. He reported that the ship is going to call at theIsraeli tourist resortAshdod, and when the ship is docked it will bepossible to kill many Jews as they lay on the beach sunbathing. He alsoreported that it should be relatively easy to smuggle weapons on board.


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For PLO, it was an extremely attractive plan for a successful terroristattack. Faced with highly developed defensive measures instituted by theIsraelis, this would be an ideal way of getting into Israel with weapons. Ifthe operation is successful, it will kill many innocent Jews, and, by takingmany rich American hostages, there would be world-wide publicity. For

PLO it was a golden opportunity.

Four Muslim terrorists were selected and tickets were purchased with fakeNorwegian passports for them for the lowest grade cabin. The terroristscarried folded Machine guns, revolvers and hand grenades in theirbaggage. During the voyage, they kept very much to themselves andmainly used room service for their meals.

At about 1330 hrs on the fateful day, shortly after leaving Alexandria, asteward entered the cabin unexpectedly thinking that occupants hadgone for lunch and, to his horror, in stead of an empty cabin found four

men busily cleaning automatic weapons. The terrorists were equallyshocked but immediately agreed to implement an alternative plan andinstead of going toAshdodto kill Israelis, they decided to seize the shipand exploit the situation as it develops.

The four terrorists ran towards the restaurants where majority of thepassengers were having lunch and started firing shots in the air. Atgunpoint, the Captain made a public announcement stating that everyoneshould Go to the restaurant, be calm and no one will be shot. No onewas allowed to go to the toilets; passengers were ordered to make theirnatures call on the carpet. To maintain the pressure, the terrorists

claimed to have placed explosive charges throughout the ship and forcedthe crew to bring plastic containers of fuel which they placed around thepassengers.

During afternoon, Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly crippled wheel chair boundJew passenger was shot dead and his body with wheel chair were thrownoverboard. Klinghofferwas celebrating together with his wife, Marilyn,their thirty-eighth marriage anniversary. The terrorists informed Captainof the killing and said that another American passenger Mrs. Hodes, wouldbe the next to be shot. Captain offered himself in place of Mrs. Hodes,suggesting that his death would have greater international impact, but

the offer was refused.

After two days, the cruise ship arrived near Port Said(Egypt) under orderof the terrorists. The terrorists commanderAbu Abbas then negotiated anagreement and the four terrorists left the ship as free men. They wouldhave remained free, if it had not been for the bravery and the skill of theUS armed forces, who successfully identified the Egyptian aircraft carrying


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the terrorists and their supporters, and forced it to land in Sardinia, wherespecial forces captured all involved.

For the terrorists point of view, it had been a well executed operationwhich achieved wide publicity for their cause. But they did not believe

that the US Government would ever deliberately break international lawand force down the Airplane of another country in international airspace.The terrorists forgot President Ragons statement You can run but youcannot hide.

TheAchille Lauro hijacking incident and murder of one old crippled manhad a major impact on cruise industry. In the Mediterranean, cruiseindustry come to a total and abrupt halt. The official Greek Governmentfigures revealed a direct loss of US $ 300 million; $ 200 million fromtourism and $ 100 million from cruise ships booking. Several cruise shipsowners found themselves out of business and thousands of sea farers lost

their jobs.

2. Attack on ferry City of Poros (11th July, 1988)

City of Poros was the name of a Greek ferry. On the fateful day, whilethe ferry was berthed at passenger jetty inside the port ofPiraeus(Greece), suddenly a large car bomb exploded on the jetty and very nearto the ship. But, fortunately due to the isolated location of the jetty andthe lack of tourists waiting on it (as the ship was at sea) there were nocasualties. Inside were found the badly dismembered bodies of an Arab

man and an Arab woman. The bomb's intended target was almostcertainly the ship, but the plan was not successful due to the prematuredetonation. However, the terrorists did not give up and a "Plan B" wasprepared immediately after the failure of the car bomb project.

Three Arab terrorists of theAbu Nidal Organization (Abu Nidal wasfounder of Fatah) boarded the ferry as part of its normal intake ofpassengers and then waited until the ship had left the port and was threemiles into its journey. At approximately 8.30 pm on the same day, thethree suddenly opened fire at random to the passengers without anyprovocation using automatic weapons and hand grenades. Within few

minutes nine tourists were dead and ninety-eight others were injured outof 540 passengers (mainly tourists on vacation) on board. The grenadeexplosion started a fierce fire, which terrified the tourists further. Manyjumped overboard and lost forever. The terrorists disappeared with aspeedboat immediately after the operation.

A year later, two of them were arrested and convicted of involvement inthe attack, but the mastermind still managed to escape official justice.


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3. Bombing on Superferry - 14 (27th February, 2004)

This is the world's deadliest terrorist attack at sea, which caused sinking

of a passenger ferry, named Superferry - 14, off the port of Manila,Philippines. A television set containing an 8-pound (4 kilograms) TNTbomb was placed on board byAbu Sayyafguerrilla group.

When the bomb exploded, there were about 900 passengers on board.The blast caused instant death of 63 people and 53 were missing andpresumed dead. It was believed thatAbu Sayyafbombed Superferry - 14because the company, that owned it, did not comply with a letterdemanding protection money.

4. Ramming attack on Limburg (6th

October, 2002)

Al Qaeda carried out this suicide terrorist attack on French registeredcrude oil tanker Limburg. During the attack, the tanker was carrying397,000 barrels of crude oil from Iran to Malaysia.

An explosives-laden dinghy rammed the starboard side (right side) of thetanker and detonated. Limburg caught on fire and approximately 90,000barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf of Aden. One crew died and 12 otherswere injured. The fire was put out and the tanker was towed to Dubai,United Arab Emirates. The repair cost was about forty-five million US$.

TheAl Qaeda member, Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeiee masterminds the attack,and was sentenced to death for this. But unfortunately, this terrorist alongwith 22 other suspected or convictedAl-Qaeda members escaped fromjail. Later on he was shot dead in police encounter.

Possibilities of future maritime terrorist attacks

From the above four case studies, it is very clear that the threat of Islamicterrorism on commercial ships, particularly the cruise liners and ferriescannot be underestimated any more. There is a proven psychological

benefit in attacking wealthy rather than poor human beings, and of allpeoples; unfortunately, the members of Jewish faith are most vulnerable,followed by Christians. A cruise ship or a ferry, which is known to becarrying large numbers of rich American Jews, must therefore be placed ina higher risk category. Other types of commercial ships are more or lessequally vulnerable too.


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IMB (International Maritime Bureau) recognizes the fact that Maritimeterrorism cannot be prevented by ships crew alone, and commented; Noshipboard response can protect the ship in those circumstances. In otherwords, the ship is just a sitting duck ready to be targeted.

The possible future threats are divided into following four categories Hijacking, Sabotage, Environmental terrorism and Container crime.

Hijacking on high seas

Today a large merchant ship is operated by hardly twenty-five people onboard. Almost all the commercial ships carry no fire arms. Hence,hypothetically it is possible for one armed man to take control of the shipand force the captain to follow his order. Unlike planes, ships move slowlyand terrorists can board with high speed crafts while underway. Thehijacked ship can be used as follows,

A cruise ship with large number of passengers on board can be seized forpurely political reasons, such as; in order to destabilize a government or to causeunrest and terror with the view to blackmailing a government or for religious or ethnic

grounds, which is a typical attitude of Islamic terrorists. The ship can be sunk byexplosion. If life saving appliances (as example, lifeboats, life rafts etc)are destroyed before the explosion, then it is inevitable that everyone willsurely die. The easiest way of sinking a ship is to rapture the outer shellplating of the engine room area by explosion.

An oil tanker, LNG / LNG (Liquefied Natural / Petroleum Gas) tanker can be

used as a floating bomb. The ship can be rammed against any offshoreinstallation (as example, coastal oil refineries), sea-port or coastal areasof importance similar to the airplanes used on 11th September 2001 against the twintowers. This will cause immediate fire and the whole ship will be a hugefireball. Here the ship itself can be used as a weapon of mass destruction.A more sinister scenario is that a small but lethal biological weapon couldbe smuggled into a seaport city by ship and released, which will causetremendous loss of lives.

The open decks of a large cargo ship can be used as missile launchingpad. Huge cargo spaces can be used to store the missiles.

A ship carrying valuable cargo (as example; Palm oil, Gas oil etc) can behijacked to sell its cargo in illegal market to finance terrorism.

A hijacked ship can be used to carry weapons and terrorists, or can be used as a means of

providing logistic support for terrorist activities under a new name and false registration.


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A special attention is required for those ships which carry AmmoniumNitrate. This chemical, Ammonium nitrate, is a common agriculturalfertilizer, which is widely traded around the world by sea. It can, whenmixed with fuel oil, be turned into a powerful explosive. Packed intotrucks, cars and vans, it has been used so far in many terrorist bombings.

Sabotage

A terrorist can destroy a ship without even coming on board. It is notmuch difficult to place explosive inside the cargo space of the ship, whilethe ship is in port. Explosives can be smuggled on board with provisions,stores and even with the luggage of a passenger or crew. In many highlycorrupted Muslim countries, like Bangladesh, Sudan and Pakistan; the portofficials, being Government employees, are often extremely dishonest.Anybody without identity proof can roam freely inside the restricted portareas by paying a bribe as low as one US $. For a commercial shipping

company handling hundreds of passengers, identifying the potentialsuspects is not an easy task. It costs not only money, but manpower andtime also. In countries like Norway, Italy, France and UK; the ferries areused like buses. Loss of time for security checks causes customerdissatisfaction. Sadly, for many ship owners; safety and commerce areoften in competition and commerce always wins.

Delayed action sea mines (explosive devices placed on the seabed orunder the sea surface) can be laid at the busy sea routes and at theentrances of busy sea ports. If a ship can be sunk at the narrow entranceof a busy seaport; the wreck will block the entrance channel for several

months, causing the port totally inactive. This will cause huge financialloss for the port. Underwater attacks can be carried out by divers orsuicide demolition teams, using limpet mines (delayed action sea minesattached to a ships hull). For small geographical nations like Singapore,whose economy greatly depends on shipping and transshipment of cargo,this type of sabotage will have severe negative impact on economy.

A terrorist can take control of a ship without even using a gun. It is notmuch difficult for a terrorist to join a ship as crew member with fakecertificates and identity. He needs not to clamber over the railing to boarda ship if he is already part of the crew. In Philippines, fake certificates can

be purchased for few thousands of US$. All crew on board can be killed orparalyzed by poisoning the only drinking water source of the ship.

Environmental terrorism

Environmental terrorism is the unlawful destruction of resources in orderto deprive others of its use and deliberate pollution to damage theenvironment. Over the years, the coastal states have become concerned


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about the possible increased threat of environmental terrorism, in whichthe environmental conditions and resources may be tools or targets ofMuslim terrorists. Present discussion is limited to marine environmentonly.

Very large crude carriers (VLCC) and Chemical tankers are most exposedto Islamic terrorism for environmental damage. Is it really very difficult forterrorists to take control of a loaded VLCC out at sea and navigate theship closer to environmentally sensitive sea areas or sea beaches ofprominent tourist attraction and cause severe environmental damage byspilling its cargo by making a hole in the cargo tanks ? In fact, rammingan explosive laden boat against a loaded tanker in Limburg style isenough. This will have severe impact on local economy, particularly forthose nations, whose economy depends on international tourism, asexample Maldives, Mauritius and Thailand etc.

In the same way, a loaded Chemical tanker can be used to damage thelocal fishing industry of a coastal state. If an attack is carried outsuccessfully, not only thousands of local poor fishermen will be beaten intheir jobs and livelihood, but also hundreds of thousands of sea-birds andsea-animals will die instantly and large area of seabed vegetation will beruined completely for several decades.

Container crime

Today, millions of uniform steel containers are used to carry generalcargo by ships. These containers are a security nightmare, because once

they are loaded and sealed, inspection is a problem. The contents inside acontainer can be misrepresented and undeclared items can be hiddeninside easily. Even when sealed, containers can be secretly opened andthen closed again without great difficulty to remove or add contents. Thisis a made-to-order method of transport for terrorists same for drug andother contraband smugglers.

As per one estimation, there are as many as 15 million containers incirculation and that over 230 million containers move through the worldsports each year, seven million containers arrive by sea in US ports aloneeach year. They carry goods worth more than $US 730 billion. Checks of

containers reaching American ports by sea increased to 5.2% of totalarrivals by September 2003, from 2% two years earlier. But worldwide,less than 1% of shipped cargo is screened.

Container trade is growing tremendously and predictions indicate that the container cargo

will quadruple in the next 20 years. Container ships could be the next terrorist vehicle. One

serious worry is that terrorists might use one of these ships to transport and then explode anuclear device in a major U.S. port. The recent exposure of an extensive and long-running


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nuclear black market that let Iran, Libya and North Korea get weapons technology from

Pakistan has heightened such fears. Already, the U.S. Coast Guard is employing highly

sensitive equipment to check ships for radioactive material. But such checks are notfoolproof. Also, Coast Guard cannot scan all ships for the potentially lethal material.

Conclusion

It is beyond any doubt that, Islamic terrorism will continue as long asIslam survives, because terrorism is an integral part of Islam. In todaysscenario, the threat of Maritime terrorism is serious and perhaps not asremote as one would like to believe. A well-planned and executed attackcould cause considerable damage to the world economy perhaps evenmore than was inflicted by the attacks on September 11. Maritime nationshave every reason to believe thatAl Qaeda and like-minded Islamicterrorist groups desire such an outcome, and the possible future attacks

discussed in this paper do not appear to be far beyond their capability.Many of the steps that can be taken to minimize the likelihood of asuccessful attack will require international cooperation to a degree thatseems unlikely, given the current complicated state of internationalmaritime law.

Soon after the Limburg attack incident, Osama bin Laden released atape in which he said, By God, the youths of God are preparing for youthings that would fill your hearts with terror and target youreconomiclifeline.

If we take a closer look on the above statement and think critically, it isnot difficult to understand that economic lifeline is nothing butcommercial shipping. Recently there have been reports of ships beinghijacked for sailing practice in the Straits of Malacca with an uncannysimilarity to the pre-September 11 use of flight schools, the hijackersquestioned crews on how to operate the ships but [showed] little interestin how to dock them. Whether these hijackings are indeed trial runs for aspectacular attack is unknown, but they plainly illustrate such potentials.

Today, worlds busiest commercial sea route is through the Strait ofMalacca, which connects the Pacific Ocean to the east with the Indian

Ocean to the west. More than 50,000 large vessels transit the Straits eachyear, carrying over 35 percent of the worlds maritime trade and half itsoil including more than 80 percent of the oil imported by China, Japanand South Korea. If Strait of Malacca is closed by a terrorist attack, theshipping would necessarily be diverted along other routes. The increasedtravel times would not only raise shipping costs and disrupt energysupplies; they would also strain a global fleet that is already operating atcapacity. Insurance costs will also skyrocket and rising insurance rates


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would drive oil prices to heights previously unseen, with catastrophiceffects for the global economy.

As per one statistics, that market loss resulting from the September 11attacks was close to $2 trillion. It seems likely that an attack closing the

Straits of Malacca would cause losses of a similar magnitude. This is notonly due to the resulting economic disturbance, but also because such anattack would plainly demonstrate both the fragility of the world economyandAl Qaedas desire and ability to prey upon it. The sudden andunforeseen fall of global economy will take several years, if not decades,to recover. This downfall will be further aggravated by a drastic increasein security costs. As per one study conducted by New York FederalReserve Bank, the property damage and cleanup costs caused bySeptember 11 amounted to about $21.6 billion, while the projectedincrease in security costs for 2003 alone was $72.1 billion. The latterfigure only includes expenses incurred in the United States; certainly

other countries and foreign corporations have also increased theirsecurity spending in response to the attacks. If the Strait of Malacca isclosed, the global economy will face the same fate.

After 9/11 tragedy, many actions had been taken for air security.Passenger safety on the air has been enhanced, but nothing remarkablehas been done so far for shipping, except implementation ofInternationalShip & Port Facility Security(ISPS) Code. But the irony is that ISPS Code doesnot address the cause of the threat; instead it regulates the victim of thethreat. ISPS Code is not meant to eradicate the security threat but just toensure that measures are implemented in order to have standard

procedures in case a security threat existed. The sad part is that in doingso, it puts an extra burden and paperwork on the already limitedresources of ships and ports. It would be more reasonable to eradicate thethreat of terrorism instead of regulating the victims, in this case the shipscrew and port employees.

The question is, who is going to take the responsibility? Who is going tobear the cost?

Safety, environmental protection and security are three most importantfactors in commercial shipping from the very early beginning. After the

sinking of unsinkable Titanic during 1912, Maritime nations becamemore concerned about safety and Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)Convention was adopted by International Maritime Organization (IMO).Similarly, the crude oil tanker ship Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967 inwhich 120,000 tonnes of oil was spilled causing massive damage to theenvironment, International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution fromShips (MARPOL) was developed.


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Probably, we shall have to wait for another 9/11 coming up from the deephorizon of the mighty blue oceans, for the Maritime nations to wake uponce more, and be concerned on the third issue.

Bibliography

Environmental Terrorism: Analyzing the ConceptbyD. M Schwartz,Journal ofPeace Research. Vol. 35, No. 4,July 1998.

Incidents at sea: Ship hijacking, maritime muggings and thefts in Southeast Asia, by

J.N Mak, a paper presented at the Intercargo Roundtable Discussion on Piracy.

February 2002. Singapore.

ISPS Code (International Ship & Port Facility Security Code), IMOs Maritime

Safety Commette.

Maritime Casualties, (a collection of major maritime disasters case studies during lastforty years) byNorman Hooke.

Maritime Security and the ISPS Code,by, Noor Apandi Osnin; a dissertation

submitted inCardiff UniversityforM. Scin Marine Policy during 2003

Maritime Security, by,K. G Hawkes, 1989, Maryland: Cornell Maritime Press.

Security at sea (Terrorism, piracy and drugs) A practical guide byBrigadier B. A.

H Parit. A Nautical Institute publication, London

Several issues of following Nautical Journals

1. Oceanite (published by Maritime Union of India),

2. Safety at Sea International(published by Lloyds register-fairplay Ltd)

3. Seagull, the journal of Indian Maritime Foundation (Published by

Indian Maritime foundation),

4. Seaways, (published by Nautical Institute. London)

5. The Samudra Darpana, (published by Indian crew union)

The Impact of Marine Pollution byDouglas J. Cuisine andJohn P. Grant. CroomHelm Ltd. London 1980.

The Secret History of Al-Qaida byAbdel Bari Atwan, 2006. Clays Ltd, St Ives plc,UK.


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Mean Acts of Islamic Terrorism on Mighty Oceans

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