Terror

The French tanker Limburg after a terrorist attack, PHOTO: AFP/NewsPix

Terrorism is not confined to land marks. It is moving offshore where ships are not just floating targets, but a threat to our harbours and ports

Maritime terrorism is no longer a threat, it is a fact.

In June Turkish authorities uncovered sophisticated missiles hidden on the Maltese flagged Breeze; in April a boat loaded with explosives destroyed a US navy patrol vessel off the Iraqi coast near the Basra oil terminal and terrorist group Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility for the sinking of the Philippines Superferry 14, killing more than 100 passengers and crew; in March two suicide bombers infiltrated the Israeli port of Ashdod in a container and in September pirates armed with automatic rifles besieged the Dong Yih in the Malacca Straits.

These are just some of the now almost weekly incidents reported in the London based Lloyds List daily and Fairplay shipping magazine. They follow a suicide bomber devastating the French oil tanker Limburg in October 2002; Italian police discovering a man equipped with a satellite phone, a laptop and fraudulent papers hiding in a US bound container in October 2001 and the suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.

Soon after the 9/11 attacks and the proclaimed war on terror the London Times reported that intelligence agencies across the world were examining Osama bin Laden's multi-million pound shipping interests. His secret fleet was said to sail under a variety of flags of convenience (FoC), allowing him to hide his ownership and transport goods, arms and recruits with little official scrutiny.

One corporate investigator told the Times: "Uncovering his bank accounts, bogus charities and front companies is child's play compared to piercing the veil of secrecy that protects shipping owners. Backwater countries with flags of convenience have watertight secrecy. And, even if you do find a suspicious ownership, how do you prove the company holding the bearer shares of that vessel is linked to his al-Qaeda network?"

In February a British intelligence group joined visiting UN and Australian experts at a Melbourne maritime security conference in warning that world ports and shipping were vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

They still are.

Even before the July 1 deadline for compliance with the International Ship and Port Facilities Security Code, the International Maritime Organisation conceded that less than half the world's ships and ports were compliant.

Australian Transport Minister John Anderson once raised the spectre of an oil tanker imploding under the Harbour Bridge. Yet while the Government sets out to ensure Australian ships and ports comply with the code, it encourages the very ships that pose a security risk into our waters.

"It does this by permitting shippers to exploit loopholes in the Australian Navigation Act and charter foreign vessels, by either timing it so no Australian ship is available or calling for tonnage larger than available," said National Secretary Paddy Crumlin. "This should become an offence under the new security legislation, supported by heavy fines or gaol sentences for shipowners or shippers involved in the scam."

The incentive? FoC ships, registered in tax havens such as Panama and Liberia, unencumbered by regulatory scrutiny and employing labour from developing countries, offer cheap freight rates.

Since December 1990 Bureau of Transport and Economics figures show that the number of permits issued to foreign flagged vessels to trade on our coast has multiplied from around 50 in 1990 to 746 in 2003. Taking into account both distances and tonnage foreign ships now carry nearly a third of our coastal domestic cargo on top of the all but 1.4 per cent of our international trade.

While the government still searches relentlessly for the floating wrecks carrying asylum seekers towards our shores, it has been less committed to restricting high-risk commercial vessels on our coast.

In June the Bahamas-registered Etly Danielsen shipped ammonium nitrate (the same explosive used in the Bali bombings) to Gladstone. And in September, the day the Maritime Transport Security Bill was introduced into the House of Representatives, the Monrovian flagged Henry Oldendorf crewed with Indonesian, Indian, Filipino, Ghanaian, Egyptian, Turkish and Maldives nationals, took on more than 10,000 tonnes of the potentially lethal fertiliser.

This is despite the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on maritime security cautioning that sea-going vessels can be the vector for, as well as a target of, terrorist attacks.

The London based firm Aegis Research and Intelligence warns in its 2004 report on maritime terrorism: "Polyglot seafarers with uncertain personal IDs - often drawn from countries plagued with Islamic radical violence - crew vessels sailing under flags of convenience."

The Independent Review into Australian Shipping (chaired by former transport ministers Peter Morris and John Sharp) also raised concerns over widespread fraud. (see opposite)

Australian government funding of maritime security has been minimal compared to some of our trading partners. The Government maintains that security is simply a cost of doing business and must be met by industry and its customers. It is investing $11.8 billion in its AusLink road and rail project, and nothing in Australian shipping. Yet the nation relies on sea transport for more than 90 per cent of its international trade.

"Australia's coastal deregulation policy is in contrast to the US which last year invested $US186 million in its national flag fleet under the Maritime Security Program and prevents any foreign vessels trading on its coast," said Crumlin.

Transport Minister John Anderson's mantra that Australia is a shipper nation, not a shipping nation, first announced at the Bulk Commodities Group dinner in December 1999, puts us badly out of step with other nations in this volatile security climate.

"The statement and the policy has been ridiculed internationally. It is both dangerous and damaging to our national interests," said Crumlin.

A recent book A Time Bomb for Global Trade: Maritime Related Terrorism in an Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Michael Richardson of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, even suggests terrorists could equip ships with crude nuclear devices.

It is not just our national icons such as the Sydney Opera House that the Government puts at risk. Shipping lanes, oil and gas are also targets. Aegis notes the recent maritime terrorist attacks on Iraqi oil fields failed to get within half a mile of their targets, but still forced oil spot prices up to a 12-year high of US$43 per barrel.

Australia's volatile LNG shipments pass west of Mindanao en route to Japan and Korea where Aegis contends piracy is linked with terrorism.