Concerned about the vulnerabilities of American shipping since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. officials have started paying more attention than ever to what cargo is loaded onto ships entering U.S. waters, and to who serves on crews, as well as to stowaways and individuals who appear to be surveying U.S. ports, reports The Washington Post.
In addition, U.S. intelligence agencies have set up large databases to track cargo, ships and seamen in a search for "anomalies" that could indicate terrorists on approaching ships, said Frances Fragos-Townsend, chief of U.S. Coast Guard intelligence.
The U.S. has identified approximately 15 cargo freighters around the world that they believe are controlled by al Qaeda or could be used by the terrorist network to ferry operatives, bombs, money or commodities over the high seas, government officials said.
Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda's leader and his aides have owned ships for years, some of which transported such commodities as cement and sesame seeds. But one vessel delivered the explosives that al Qaeda operatives used to bomb two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, U.S. officials said.
Since September 2001, the U.S. list of al Qaeda mystery ships has varied from a low of a dozen to a high of 50. Some are ships up to 400 feet long that do not need to refuel on extended journeys, and therefore are less likely to draw scrutiny. U.S. officials do not know precisely how each of these "ships of concern" is being used, except that some are generating profits for al Qaeda. Any of them could be used in an attack anywhere in the world, officials fear. The Washington Post quoted terrorism experts as saying that Al Qaeda has escalated its attempts to launch assaults at sea because it believes waterborne targets are easier, Starting with the suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen in 2000, by al Qaeda men in an inflatable dinghy — a strike that killed 17 sailors — U.S. officials have discerned a steady increase in nautical attacks, some of which were aborted by the planners or uncovered by authorities at the last moment. The latest attack came in October, when the hull of the French oil tanker Limburg was blasted by a speedboat off Yemen, causing a widespread oil spill.
"A shadowy underworld"
For decades, U.S. intelligence focused on foreign shipping only sporadically but after Sept. 11, U.S. officials realised the danger of terrorists attacking from the sea, and rushed to gain expertise about the world's commercial shipping industry.
U.S. Navy intelligence has struck data-sharing agreements with dozens of allied navies, and enlisted tipsters among port managers across the globe, as well as shipping agents, crew manning supervisors and seafarers unions.
"This industry is a shadowy underworld," said a senior U.S. government official knowledgeable about the effort. "After 9/11, we suddenly learned how little we understood about commercial shipping. You can't swing a dead cat in the shipping business without hitting somebody with phoney papers."
Dozens of Navy and allied ships are scouring the Arabian Sea in search of al Qaeda ships and fighters, in one of the largest naval seahunts since World War II. Members have searched hundreds of ships, and issued hundreds more "challenges" by radio asking for information.
In that part of the world, U.S. naval officers suspect they are as likely to find terrorists aboard a 300-foot freighter as they are aboard a dhow, the small sailing vessel common along the coasts of the Indian Ocean. U.S. officials believe traders sailing small craft have been bribed for months to help al Qaeda fighters escape from Pakistan to Yemen and other countries.
U.S. efforts to track al Qaeda's activities at sea received a boost last month with the capture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an alleged mastermind of al Qaeda's nautical strategy who officials say is now co-operating with U.S. interrogators.
'Flags' of Convenience
Another new preoccupation for U.S. intelligence is the thousands of merchant ships world-wide that are registered in "flag of convenience" nations, some of which ask for almost no information from shipping firms that "flag" their vessels with them.
Navy officials say al Qaeda has used one shipping fleet — called Nova and incorporated in Delaware, U.S., and Romania but which is flagged in the Pacific island of Tonga — to transport operatives around the Mediterranean Sea. Last February, eight Pakistani men jumped ship off one of its freighters, the Twillinger, at the Italian port of Trieste after a trip from Cairo. U.S. officials say they determined that the men — who lied about being crewmen and carried false documents and large sums of money — had been sent by al Qaeda.
In August, after the captain of another of Nova's freighters, the recently renamed Sara, radioed to maritime authorities in Italy, U.S. officials say they found tens of thousands of dollars, false documents, maps of Italian cities and evidence tying some of those on board to al Qaeda members in Europe, and concluded that they, too, were possibly on a terrorist mission.
In October, European navies set up a dragnet for another Nova freighter, the oft-renamed Cristi. Greek merchant marine minister George Anomeritis told reporters then that besides the Cristi, NATO also has been looking for 24 other ships suspected of terrorist ties.
** The European Union has started legal action against member states who have bilateral anti-terrorist deals with the United States to beef up port security for U.S.-bound cargo, officials said.
The EU's executive Commission said all 15 member nations should join together in negotiating an overall deal with Washington, a move it claims would increase security and eliminate trade discrimination between EU ports.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, EU-U.S. co-operation has increased sharply, though disputes over the extradition of suspects and information sharing remain.
So far the United States has closed deals with the world's busiest port, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, as well as Belgium's Antwerp, Hamburg and Bremerhaven in Germany and the port at Le Havre in France.
Smaller EU ports are concerned being left out will leave them with a competitive disadvantage because cargo from the big ports would be given faster clearance in U.S. ports.