Posted on 09/12/2002 11:15:32 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
THIS IS A RE-POST OF AN ARTICLE FROM ASIA I PROVIDED TO FR A FEW WEEKS AGO:
Radioactive Shipping Cargo `Stolen by Al-Qaeda'
Dirty bomb bid spurs rise in regional piracy
Anucha Charoenpo
Al-Qaeda is among international terrorist organisations responsible for an increase in piracy against ships carrying radioactive materials through the Malacca Straits, an expert in regional affairs has warned.
The terrorist groups' main aims were to obtain substances such as uranium and plutonium oxide for use in so-called dirty bombs, said Panithan Watthanayakorn, a political lecturer at Chulalongkorn University.
He said the Malacca Straits, between Indonesia's Sumatra island and Malaysia, was not adequately patrolled because of internal disputes within regional countries, which made suppressing piracy difficult.
``The straits are very narrow and there are no patrol vessels, so it is easy for terrorist groups to attack ships,'' he said at a seminar organised by the university and the Rajabhat Institute.
Mr Panithan obtained his information during a workshop organised by the International Maritime Bureau.
Aside from al-Qaeda, ships were also being targeted by Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, he said.
According to the bureau, there were 649 cases of piracy in the straits last year.
Most piracy groups obtained prior knowledge of the route to be taken by their target, which they trapped by mooring a vessel on either side, he said.
The crew of commercial ships had no way of defending themselves, and most incidents lasted less than an hour.
Mr Panithan called on governments around the region to act against the security threat, which also affected the regional economy, with goods worth an average of about one million baht pilfered in each case of piracy.
The navies of all Southeast Asian nations should seek to strengthen ties and cooperation in exchanging information to curb piracy, he said.
This is the grim reality that our President was talking about this morning in his great speech at the UN! It will be worth everyone's time to go there and catch up on what's happening.
Beijing's Surge For the Strait of Malacca, Yossef Bodansky, 1998 Revision
There are good reasons to suspect the PRC (and some of THEIR friends...) vis a vis 9/11 and other events related to Al Qaida. This is not just terrorism standing on its own; it is terrorism as a component of unrestricted warfare by a growing Axis against the West.
Talk about putting two and two together...Anyone sure we aren't ready to take the alert up to a code red, yet?
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