The lesson learned from the terrorist attack on the USS Cole – the bombing in Yemen’s Aden port in 2000 killed 17 sailors on the U.S. Navy destroyer – applied equally to supertankers, cargo vessels or cruise ships, he said: allowing small vessels alongside carries significant risks.
Murray said companies were for various reasons reluctant to consider employing armed personnel, apparently believing security should be left to navies.
“We believe that national navies should be reinforced by a protective presence on privately-owned ships for the same reason that banks and other firms that deal with money and money transfer use armed protective personnel who can react immediately during an event and before the local police can intervene,” he said.
*****
I don’t know how many other ways I can communicate the urgency here. Today’s navies cannot be everywhere at once. They were not able to stop this attack on a Japanese Tanker in the Strait of Hormuz (SoH), and it was pure luck that these booger eaters were not successful. Look at the photo below?
Let’s discuss what is at stake here. If 40 percent of the world’s oil transits through the SoH , then why are we not doing everything that is necessary to insure the SoH is not endangered by an attack on shipping like this again? If these guys destroy, or even capture a boat and purposely sink it in the SoH, that would have immense repercussions on the global economy. A global economy already on edge and in trouble with recession. Because an attack in the SoH, would be an attack that would drive up oil prices and thus drive fuel prices through the roof.
Now going back to the most effective strategy, and for that matter the most cost effective strategy to deal with this. A real push by private and public leadership needs to be focused on getting the shipping industry up to speed on protecting itself. Every boat going through the SoH should be required to have armed security that can adequately defend itself from not just one attack, but from a ‘swarming‘ attack. Because knowing how Al Qaeda and company operate, they will more than likely attempt this type of attack again in the future and modify the attack for a better chance of success. They are learning and they will apply those lessons.
As for the cost effectiveness? That comes from standing down Navies and limiting them to a quick reaction capacity for ships that are in trouble, as well as having them continue anti-piracy operations. Keep them on the offense. But in terms of trying to protect all ships everywhere via escort is an impossibility, and far too costly.(although I would still recommend escorting through choke points if possible, much like with the SoH) Have the shipping industry protect it’s own assets, much like banks or jewelry stores hire security to protect their assets. A super tanker is a costly thing, with an equally valuable payload, yet companies try to go cheap when protecting these two things? That dynamic needs to change, and having the Navies of the world allow that change to happen takes telling the shipping industry that they need to absorb this cost and take their fair share of the load in this endeavor. Besides, how does a destroyer or aircraft carrier meet the demands of the ‘many and small‘ with today’s enemies? We are talking about guys in small boats, armed with AK’s or explosive cargo?
The other angle that I keep thinking about is the concept of Qursaans or Jihadist Privateers. Al Shabab obviously has contacts with some of the best pirates in the world operating off the coast of Somalia. To tap into this industry and use it for other means would not be a stretch. A Somali pirate captain, who was the best in his industry, could take down one of these commercial ships in the SoH and then hand it, along with the hostages over to Al Qaeda. That’s probably if Al Qaeda offered a significant bounty for such a thing. The point being is that Al Qaeda could potentially take control of a ship and either ram it into another ship, sink it in place by blowing it and it’s hostages up, or using it as a weapon against a port (one that deals in oil). The imagination is the only limit.
Time is also not on our side. Jihadists know that economic problems throughout the west makes this the most opportune time to attack. That is why I declare that this is of utmost importance for armed security to be a top priority for today’s shipping, and especially those that are running through the SoH. There should be no more debate about it, no more conflicting expert analysis, no more talk about cost, or legal debates about the right of self defense on the high seas. Because at the end of the day, all of that will be shadowed by the massive economic destruction caused by such an attack or attacks. How long will ‘wishing’ and ‘hoping’ away reality last?-Matt
Tanker Damage Caused by Attack, Inquiry Finds
Act Now on Terror Threat to Key Oil Routes, Say Experts
—————————————————————–
In this photo released by the Emirates News Agency (WAM), damage is seen on the side of the M. Star supertanker as it arrived at Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, July 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Emirates News Agency)
*****
Tanker Damage Caused by Attack, Inquiry Finds
By ROBERT F. WORTH
August 6, 2010
WASHINGTON — Investigators in the United Arab Emirates said Friday that a terrorist attack caused the mysterious damage a Japanese oil tanker suffered last week as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz, raising fears of future attacks in the narrow channel that serves as a passageway for shipping crude oil from the Middle East to the rest of the world.
The damage to the tanker — which an Emirati official said was caused by “homemade explosives” aboard a dinghy — was not considered serious, and there was little immediate impact on oil markets on Friday.
But the news instantly fanned worries about shipping security. If confirmed, the attack would be the first of its kind in the volatile strait, which has long been a focal point for tensions with Iran, just across the water from the Arabian Peninsula.
About 17 million barrels of oil a day pass through the strait, close to 40 percent of the oil shipped by tankers worldwide.
The account of the attack came in a report published Friday by the state-run Emirates news agency WAM, from an Emirati coast guard official.
Earlier this week, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a militant group with ties to Al Qaeda, claimed it had carried out a suicide attack against the tanker, the M. Star.
American officials on Friday would not confirm that the episode was a terror attack, but one intelligence official said that the damage to the tanker — a large square dent on the hull’s port side — was “from an external explosion.” The official said it remained unclear whether the group taking credit for bombing the tanker was indeed involved.
Lt. John Fage, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, said that a team of Navy divers had recently traveled to Fujairah to assess the ship’s damage.
The Japanese government was conducting its own investigation. Japan’s transportation minister, Seiji Maehara, said at a news conference in Tokyo that the government had obtained samples taken from the damaged portion of the tanker and would “conduct analyses for all possible causes, without prejudice.”
The ship, loaded with two million barrels of oil, was heading toward Japan on July 28 when a sudden force shattered windows, ripped off deck railings and blew off a lifeboat, in addition to punching the dent into its black-and-red hull. One crew member was slightly hurt.
The ship’s owner, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, said in a statement that it was still investigating the extent and the cause of the ship’s damage. Last week, Mitsui officials said they suspected an attack. Crew members aboard the ship said they had seen a flash and heard an explosion, officials said, but there were no reports of a boat approaching the tanker.
Maritime security experts and port officials in the Middle East had raised the possibility that the tanker had collided with a submarine, hit a degraded sea mine — perhaps left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s — or had even been hit by a “freak wave” — a theory quickly discarded once investigators began to examine the damage to the ship.
Last week, American military officials and security experts were dubious about the possibility the ship had been attacked, suggesting that a collision of some kind was more likely.
Despite the seemingly amateurish nature of the alleged attack, its implications are serious, analysts said.
“Before, the Iranian naval threat was seen as key,” said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Institute in Dubai. “Now, we have the possibility of Qaeda-type groups that appear to be learning from the tactics of pirates.”
One crucial question, Mr. Alani added, was where the presumed attacker would have come from. The coasts in the region are closely watched.
Recently, jihadist Web sites have seen a number of exchanges about attacking tankers in the Persian Gulf to disrupt international oil markets, said Evan F. Kohlmann, a terrorism analyst at Flashpoint Global Partners, a New York security consulting firm.
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades has been known mostly for its claims to have launched missiles at Israel from southern Lebanon, Mr. Kohlmann said. In its claim of responsibility for the tanker attack, the group said it had aimed at wreaking havoc in international markets.
In that sense, the attack failed, analysts said, coming at a time when OPEC producers have large amounts of spare capacity, global oil inventories are high and oil demand remains sluggish. Oil futures barely reacted to the news, with prices actually falling on Friday in New York by about 1 percent to $81.20 a barrel.
“Back in 2008, there might have been a 50-cent blip, but today it is not even making headlines in terms of its impact on the oil market,” said Greg Priddy, an energy analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. “It is not going to impede the tanker business or the oil market in any significant way.”
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades is unusual among jihadist groups in that it operates as a “patchwork of free-floating militant cells” affiliated with Al Qaeda but not directly controlled by it.
The only previous maritime terrorist attacks in the region have taken place on the coast of Yemen, on the southern side of the Arabian Peninsula. In 2000, an Al Qaeda suicide bomber rammed the American destroyer Cole in the port of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. In 2002, a French tanker, the Limburg, was attacked in a similar way a few miles off the coast of Aden, and one crewman was killed.
While tankers are slow and hard to maneuver, making them easy targets, attacks against tankers have been extremely rare. Modern tankers typically have twin hulls, many separate compartments to store oil, and are sturdy enough to withstand a direct hit from rocket-propelled grenades, for instance.
Aside from the attacks on ships that occurred during the Iran-Iraq war, the attack on the Limburg is the only other instance analysts cite of a tanker being attacked by terrorists. That attack, carried out by a small fishing boat packed with explosives, was believed to have been the work of Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, and was the group’s first successful strike against an oil target.
The Limburg was crippled and leaked some oil, but did not sink.
The damage to the M. Star was even less severe. After a week docked in the Port of Fujairah for repairs and an examination, the tanker departed Friday and began returning to Japan, Emirati and Japanese news agencies reported.
Story here.
——————————————————————-
Act Now on Terror Threat to Key Oil Routes, Say Experts
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
By Patrick Goodenough
An attempt by terrorists to blow up a supertanker in one of the world’s most strategic waterways, though unsuccessful, is prompting fresh calls for decision-makers to take steps now both to lessen the chances of such an attack and to minimize the economic disruption if one occurs.
Maritime security experts say shipping companies should make their vessels less vulnerable to terrorists by adopting measures such as deploying visible armed protection.
Nine days after the Japanese-owned M. Star, laden with 270,200 tons of crude oil reported an unexplained explosion while traversing the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz, United Arab Emirates’ authorities confirmed on Friday that the incident was a terror attack.
Shortly after the July 28 incident, governments on both sides of the Strait – Iran, Oman and the UAE – played down the shipping company’s concerns, citing instead theories including damage from a large quake-induced wave, despite the fact no earthquake had been reported in the region.
A screenshot from a message posted on a jihadist Web site by the “Abdullah Azzam Brigades” shows a man the group said carried out a suicide bombing attack against a supertanker in the Strait of Hormuz on July 28, 2010. (Image: Al Faloja)
But on Aug. 3, al-Qaeda terrorists posted on a militant Web site a claim of responsibility for the blast, identifying the apparent suicide bomber whom it said had carried out the attack on “an important economic lifeline” to avenge the theft of Muslim resources.
The “Abdullah Azzam Brigades” derided the earthquake claims, saying they were an attempt to prevent oil price rises and to hide the fact security systems had failed.
UAE officials then said on Friday investigations had found traces of explosive on the dented hull of the 160,000-ton vessel, saying this indicated the likelihood of a small boat attack.
‘The crusaders’ umbilical cord’
The Strait of Hormuz is less than 30 miles wide at its narrowest point, but the actual shipping lanes, one for tanker traffic in each direction, are just two miles across.
Up to 40 percent of tanker-shipped oil worldwide, some 17 million barrels of oil a day, travels through the choke point.
Some 3,600 miles to the southeast, another key waterway — the narrow Strait of Malacca between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia – carries one-third of the world’s ship borne trade, including the bulk of oil shipments to China and Japan.
The prospect of either of these straits being shut to shipping has long worried economists, maritime security experts and governments.
A closure in the Malacca Strait would require considerably longer routes south of the Indonesian archipelago (which is why China is eyeing options including a 750-mile pipeline across Burma and, possibly, ambitious plans to build a canal across southern Thailand.)
The alternative route for Persian Gulf oil would be the East-West pipeline across Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea, but the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration notes that the pipeline has far less capacity than required, while the longer route would also push up costs.
Severely disrupted shipping in either strait could cause panic in oil markets and push up insurance premiums prohibitively.
While piracy has historically been the main concern in Malacca, the post-9/11 era has heightened terrorism fears, with experts warning that the resulting disruption could have an enormous impact on the global economy.
Al-Qaeda has made no secret of its intentions in this regard – and that it knows the potential consequences of such a strike.
After suicide bombers in a small boat attacked the French oil tanker Limburg off the coast of Yemen in 2002 – the blast killed a crewman and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the sea – the network released a statement, attributed to Osama bin Laden.
“By exploding the oil tanker in Yemen, the holy warriors hit the umbilical cord and lifeline of the crusader community, reminding the enemy of the heavy cost of blood and the gravity of losses they will pay as a price for their continued aggression on our community and looting of our wealth,” it said.
In 2008 the Heritage Foundation carried out a comprehensive exercise simulating terror attacks affecting oil shipments through Hormuz and Malacca.
It found the impact on the U.S. economy would include a spike in gasoline prices – almost doubling within days – decreasing industrial output and a rapid slowdown in the U.S. economy, entailing a loss of some 1.5 million jobs in the first year.
Although America imports less than 20 percent of its petroleum from the Middle East – most comes from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela – as the world’s number one petroleum consumer the U.S. would be severely affected, the Heritage study found.
“Oil prices around the world are set by the globalized markets. Any reduction in global supply will elevate prices for all consumers, including those in the Western Hemisphere.”
The study explored ways to mitigate the impact and restore confidence to markets and consumers. It highlighted the importance of relying on market forces – at a time when domestic constituencies will likely to press for greater centralized control of national assets.
“After the crisis begins, it will be too late to educate the general population about market principles,” the report said. “They must have this understanding beforehand. Public information on handling energy crises needs to be developed in advance and promptly implemented as the crises erupt.”
It would also be important for major producer and consumer nations to work together. Coordinated security activities would include mine-sweeping and escorting tankers through choke points.
“It is critical to prepare effective, multilateral responses to counter these potentially devastating attacks, which are part of al-Qaeda’s strategy to cause the collapse of the Western economy,” Heritage scholar Ariel Cohen said in a posting Monday.
“Given al-Qaeda’s determination to attack the West’s energy supply, the foundation for such cooperation must be laid now – rather than in the aftermath of a crippling terrorist strike.”
‘Harden the target’
A maritime security firm argues that ship owners should be doing more to make their vessels less likely targets for criminals, whether pirates or terrorists.
Michael Murray, CEO of Virginia-based company Aqua Sentry Corp., said it was an observed fact that increasing the level of armed preparedness and hardening targets deters terrorist attacks.
“There is no difference in the terrorist view between a government-protected target and a privately-protected target – it is the fact of armed protection that deters terrorists,” he said.
“Given the choice between a well protected or ‘hard’ target and an unprotected or ‘soft’ target, both terrorists and pirates will go for the unprotected ones.”
Murray said that as with piracy, there were parts of the world where the terrorist threat to ships is higher, and businesses and governments should seek expert advice on how to assess and mitigate the risks.
“The best way for a shipper, a ship owner or operator, or an insurer to protect their ships, cargo and personnel is to employ a range of visible protection, including armed professionals, to keep small vessels away from their hulls,” he said.
“This makes it impossible for either a barge laden with explosives or a small boat filled with armed pirates or terrorists to accomplish their goals.”
The lesson learned from the terrorist attack on the USS Cole – the bombing in Yemen’s Aden port in 2000 killed 17 sailors on the U.S. Navy destroyer – applied equally to supertankers, cargo vessels or cruise ships, he said: allowing small vessels alongside carries significant risks.
Murray said companies were for various reasons reluctant to consider employing armed personnel, apparently believing security should be left to navies.
“We believe that national navies should be reinforced by a protective presence on privately-owned ships for the same reason that banks and other firms that deal with money and money transfer use armed protective personnel who can react immediately during an event and before the local police can intervene,” he said.
Story here.