As per the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, more than 80 per cent of international trade in goods is carried by sea and more than one-third of the seaborne merchandise is made up of crude oil and petroleum products. By the beginning of 2010, the total world merchant fleet had expanded to reach 1.276 billion deadweight tonnes. There are about 46,000 ships touching 4,000 ports and there are more than 15 million containers in use. Add to this the military navies of the world moving on the high seas or berthed at ports and you have thousands of maritime targets for terrorists to bomb, extort, or blackmail to achieve their goals.

“By indirection find directions out.”  — William Shakespeare

Terrorism

The above quote from Hamlet has many interpretations including “one can adopt an indirect approach to arrive at a desired result”. Some security analysts believe that asymmetrical warfare is fought between groups, countries or other entities, in an environment of combat power mismatch among opposing forces. This also results in the adoption of significantly unconventional strategy or tactics by the weaker force. When such warfare is fought without adhering to any universally accepted norms or rules of engagement, it can then be termed as terrorism. There is a very thin line between asymmetrical warfare and terrorism. India has been calling it low-intensity conflict when used against military targets and terrorism where civilians have been targeted. Terrorism has complex cultural, religious and historical origins. It can include criminal elements, coercion of population, and use of extremism in religion, politics and methods. The object is to deny, destroy, disrupt, dislocate and degrade the adversary to weaken him mentally and physically. The tactics employed are use of ingenuity (like crashing of passenger jets to blow up buildings during 9/11), economy of effort, surprise and deep indoctrination of the frontline soldiers. It also has no quick-fix conventional solutions. Al-Qaeda, the Army of Mohammed in Yemen, Narco-guerrillas in Colombia, Lashkar-e-Taiba, etc are some examples of terrorist organisations. Many such organisations have links with criminals, black marketers, drug lords, arms dealers and zealots. Violence is a way of life for the terrorist as it is an excellent tool that can be used against democratic countries to coerce them into submission. Such an approach degrades the high-tech advantages of their adversaries and optimises the use of electromagnetic spectrum. Land, sea and air are included in the battleground.

Maritime Terrorism

Maritime terrorism has been defined by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific working as an “undertaking of terrorist acts and activities within the maritime environment, using or against vessels or fixed platforms at sea or in port, or against any one of their passengers or personnel, against coastal facilities or settlements, including tourist resorts, port areas and port towns or cities”.

The above does not define the terrorist act and is silent on the inclusion of military vessels and infrastructure. It should actually include all civil as well as military vessels and maritime infrastructure, and all maritime means that are used in transportation of personnel and resources that are used for promoting terrorism. Maritime terrorism like any other terrorism is motivated for achieving political goals beyond the immediate act of attacking a maritime target. Although piracy is defined in Article 101 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it can still be used as a tool of terrorism to finance the terrorism organisation, disrupt lanes of communications to disrupt trade, coercion and black mail. Maritime terrorism requires special skills in seaman ship, acquiring of special equipment like various types of vessels, underwater expertise including use of explosives, special weapons, special sensors, diving equipment and a covert place to carry out training. Such specialist needs require huge financial outlays, as such not many terrorist organisations venture into the sea.

Historical Perspective

Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA): During the 1980s, PIRA smuggled a large amount of arms and explosives from Libya to Ireland using container ships registered under flags of convenience. PIRA was responsible for killing more civilians at that time as compared to any other terrorist group in Europe, but most of their attacks were confined to land and very few targeted marine vessels like ferries and private yachts. Their most famous attack was on the yacht of Lord Mountbatten in 1979 when the bomb killed Lord Mountbatten, two of his godchildren and one crewman.

Al-Qaeda

The architect of Al-Qaeda’s maritime terrorism was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri of Saudi Arabian origin who travelled to Afghanistan to participate in attacks against the Russians. In 1996, he travelled to Tajikistan and then Jalalabad, where he first met Osama bin Laden but did not join him. He later on travelled to Yemen and started planning to carry out terrorist attacks against the US. He has also fought alongside the Taliban against the Afghan Northern Alliance. Al-Nashiri joined Al-Qaeda in 1998 and was reporting directly to bin Laden. During the same year, he planned to attack a US vessel using a boat full of explosives. Al-Nashiri was then tasked by Laden to attack the US or Western oil tankers off the coast of Yemen. As he found difficulty in finding targets along the western coast of Yemen, his operations were shifted to the port of Aden to target the US navy vessels. The average refuelling stop of a US military vessel in the port of Aden was just less than four hours. Al-Nashiri appreciated that for the operation to be successful, reliable and timely intelligence was the key. Thus he set up a network of informers who were working in the Port of Aden or along the Red Sea. His first attempt on USS The Sullivans failed, as the boat carrying the explosives sank due to overload. The next attempt was on USS Cole on October 12, 2000, which was making a routine refuelling halt at Aden. The attack was carried out by two Saudi suicide terrorists, Hassan al Khamri and Ibrahim al-Thawar who exploded a small craft alongside the USS Cole with 270 kg of C-4 explosives killing 17 US sailors and injuring 37. This success brought him fame and respect within Al-Qaeda, and Al-Nashiri became the chief of operations for the Arabian Peninsula. He then planned the attack on the French oil tanker VLCC MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen on the second anniversary of the attack on USS Cole. On October 6, 2002, a small fibreglass boat loaded with 100-200 kg of TNT explosives guided by two Yemenite suicide terrorists rammed the tanker killing one and injuring 25 crew members. MV Limburg carried about 4,00,000 barrels of crude of which an estimated 90,000 spilled into the Gulf of Aden. As a direct result of the bombing, oil prices rose by $0.48 a barrel due to increasing insurance fees for ships operating through Aden. Al-Qaeda’s communiqués intercepted after the bombing congratulated the brave jihadis.

Al-Nashiri is currently on trial before a military tribunal in Guantanamo on charges that carry the death penalty. Al-Nashiri based his maritime terrorist tactics on the following:

• Using a zodiac speed boat packed with explosives to ram warships or other ships
• Using medium sized boats as bombs to be blown up near slips or ports
• Having underwater demolition teams