Maritime Terror

Sep 2004
Security analysts are increasingly worried that organisations like Al Qaeda are planning to target commercial shipping.

The Malacca strait between Indonesia and Malaysia has long been a haven for pirates. Last year 21 seamen were killed and a further 71 are missing presumed dead following pirate attacks. "We have seen rocket-propelled grenades being fired at the vessel to force it to stop," states Captain Pottengal Mukundan from the International Maritime Bureau. But the biggest fear is of a terrorist attack. "This is a relatively narrow passageway which provides certain operational advantages to the attackers," explains security analyst Brian Jenkins. Mukundan agrees: "You could have a major maritime terrorist incident." The attacks on the USS Cole and The Limburg demonstrate just how vulnerable even warships are to attacks. Analysing the nature of the maritime threat has become a growing industry. But it's not just security analysts taking the threat seriously. Earlier this year, the US suggested sending the marines to patrol the Malacca Strait. The threat was enough to galvanise the Indonesian, Malay and Singaporean navies into action. They're now jointly patrolling the Straits. But whether this will be enough to deter terrorists remains to be seen.

Produced by SBS/Dateline
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Malaysia
• Malacca
• strait
• security
• Al
• Qaeda
• pirates
• war
• Journeyman
• Pictures
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[hannigan06]

Economy is a big deal man. The ships may move slow but what they lack in speed they make up for in size. Think for a second if that tanker was sunk at the mouth of a harbor. It would take months to clean it up. Slowing things down. If multiple attacks happened it be even worse.

[oy]

Whoa, very impressive for the cameras, but i think it's an escalating problem for the mere fact that not so much attention has been paid to this issue. I say nip it on the bud now.

[mortonsalt18]

kill the bastards...don't think twice

[krhonhos]

@iTailsTheStunter maybe is to expensive for the companies or is much better the warships in the area ....

anyway , is a difficult problem i dont think whit a security team we will have a solution

[globfrob]

lol he sed semen xD

[iTailsTheStunter]

My dad was on the USS Cole. This is a big problem but unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it unless we have security on these ships, but companies don't feel like paying for security for their own fucking workers. Great companies huh?

[theCooldl]

i hope my country dont waste any money to protect this ship cause its at international water.. the ships just pass by and not even do business with our country.. so just let them hire blackwater or whatever.. please dont use our tax payer money for their business insurances..

[theporksicle]

Just an idea but why not build bigger ships which can transport say 20 million barrels of oil (if that's even possible) and then saturate them with security guards, weaponary, radars etc economies of scale so to speak, you may have 500 guards on board but you're transporting over $1 billion worth of oil so its worth it.

[sgfhk321]

"foreign seamen"

lolololol

I am so sorry for finding this juvenile thing funny.

[1Waddup]

basically, every cargo ship should have a police, military escort!! problem solve!

[EGASANJAYA]

open globalfirepower. com

indonesia rank 14 in the word

and 2 in mouslem country?

malaysia?secreat?

seperti zimbabwe,nigeria,laos juga?

kan dia juga g ada di globalfirepower. com jg!!

[phififopham]

@EGASANJAYA indonesia doesn't have the biggest military in south eat asia