pirates fire on cruise ship off somalia, page-21

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16047933%255E31477,00.html

Maritime pirates the next big terror threat: Beazley

Michelle Wiese Bockmann
July 26, 2005

KIM Beazley warned yesterday that al-Qa'ida-sponsored terrorists were moving into maritime piracy in Southeast Asia and that this could become "a likely avenue of attack on us".

The Opposition Leader said regional terror groups Jemaah Islamiah and the Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf group were among those raising their involvement in regional piracy and that "ought to be of considerable discomfort to us".

"If we are going to effectively deter people from using our waterways for terrorist purposes, we've got to look at things like the amount of shipping that is conducted around our coastline by flag-of-convenience ships with the potential of fraudulent papers that related to their crews as well," Mr Beazley said. "These are serious problems which we have given no attention to."

Mr Beazley also said that less than 90 per cent of shipping containers arriving in Australia were inspected.

Maritime insurers have declared the Malacca Strait, between Sumatra and Malaysia and the world's busiest sea lane, as a shipping security threat.

With eight increasingly violent pirate attacks recorded since February, Lloyd's Market Association has placed the strait on a par with Iraq as a high-risk area for war and terrorism.

The move has sparked criticism from ship owners facing higher premiums that local governments had overstated the perceived terror threat.

Abu Sayyaf was behind the Superferry bombing in February last year that killed more than 100 people - the country's worst terrorist attack.

The Malaysia-based Piracy Reporting Centre from the International Maritime Bureau said yesterday there was no evidence al-Qa'ida had moved into piracy.

Director Noel Choong said his centre - which tracks and monitors global piracy attacks - "would be the first to know" if terrorists had infiltrated piracy gangs operating in the Malacca Strait and the wider Asian region. Mr Choong said he was unaware of any risk posed to Australia.

"There is speculation (about terrorists being involved in piracy) but no evidence," he said. "But we always say that you can never discount the possibility."

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has warned that JI posed "real and urgent" threats to shipping.

"We know they have been studying maritime targets," he told the International Herald Tribune.

And Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Razak, has proposed that Australia, along with the US and Japan, provide 24-hour aircraft surveillance for the Malacca Strait to help police the waterway and fight piracy.

About 50,000 ships - carrying a quarter of the world's trade and half its oil - pass through the Malacca Strait each year. Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, the three coastal states that share jurisdiction, initiated joint patrols last year.