LONDON — With al-Qaeda stepping up its sporadic attacks on Western targets, there is a consensus among terrorism experts and the FBI that international shipping is increasingly vulnerable to suicide bombs and other extreme tactics, the Dallas Morning News reported.
The risk extends beyond the big, obvious targets – the French oil tanker blown up off the coast of Yemen in October, for instance – to the thousands of ferryboats that move cars, cargo and commuters from port to port, often with minimal security, in the United States and Europe.
And the threat extends inland, to the nation’s railways and interstate highways, experts warn, because the container units carried into U.S. ports by ships from all over the globe are routinely transferred into rail cars or trucks without being checked for explosives or other dangerous devices.
It would be possible for terrorists to load a container with a “dirty bomb” or a chemical weapon that could be programmed to detonate at a time when the container is in the middle of a crowded urban area, warned Steven Flynn, a former U.S. Coast Guard commander who is a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.
“My worst-case scenario is the use of a container with a weapon of mass destruction or high explosive that will cause high casualties,” he said. “Right now, we don’t have a system of safeguards. It is an attractive target for al-Qaeda because it would cause great economic damage.”
Mr. Flynn said anyone anywhere with $2,500 could contact a shipping broker and arrange to transport a closed container to a destination in the United States.
“We have no standards over what gets loaded and no standards over its transportation,” he said. “Can we be comfortable that what’s in this box is legitimate and has not been intercepted and tampered with?
“Unless you can answer yes to both those questions, you have to assume it’s high risk. And in 99 percent of the world, there is no oversight over the loading process.”
Mr. Flynn said that one serious incident involving containers brought into the United States by ship would prompt the public to demand the entire system be shut down, crippling global commerce. Checking every container in the shipping system would require six months, he said, compared with the three days it took to check each passenger jet after the U.S. air-travel network was shut down after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The impact of a shipping shutdown would be disastrous for the U.S. economy, which depends on a very efficient, inexpensive system designed to move vast quantities of goods around the globe, Mr. Flynn said.
While U.S. counterterrorism officials grapple with this potential hazard, and their European counterparts have imposed high security alerts in recent months because of intelligence indicating that terrorists plan to target one of the many car ferries that link Britain to the European mainland.
The ferries are perceived as vulnerable because they are designed to transport large trucks filled with retail goods, including electronics, furniture and agricultural items. The trucks and containers provide a vital economic lifeline that links Britain to France, Germany, the Netherlands and points east.
An extensive search of loading points in Europe was conducted several weeks ago after information about a specific truck bomb was provided to authorities. It is not clear whether the original tip came from terror suspects who had been detained in France and the Netherlands or from FBI agents who picked up the warning elsewhere.
No bomb was found, but the entire ferry system remains on high alert, said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
“Ferry companies have been told to stay on a heightened state of alert,” he said. “To hit a ferry would show a presence. In some cases, it’s up to 2,000 people on board, and there is soft security. It’s a soft target that leaves on a daily basis.”
Mr. Ranstorp said the security status of ferries was first raised because detained al-Qaeda militants revealed that al-Qaeda cadres in Afghanistan had discussed possible attacks on ferries when the Taliban was still in power.
“Al-Qaeda has a maritime military manual that classifies ships, showing different classes of vessels, where to hit them and how much explosives you need,” he said. “Not surprisingly, they have an exceptionally strong maritime capability.”
Investigators believe al-Qaeda showed this capability early in October when a small boat filled with explosives rammed the gigantic French oil tanker Limburg off the coast of Yemen, the site of an earlier deadly al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole. One crewman was killed, and 90,000 barrels of crude oil were spilled into the sea.
Authorities have linked the attack to al-Qaeda. In communiqués issued in the Arab world, al-Qaeda operatives have praised the assault as a success against the global oil trade.
Oil supertankers are seen as a relatively easy and attractive target. They are gigantic, slow and virtually impossible to maneuver if attacked by a small speedboat laden with bombs.
They also have a high symbolic value in the Middle East, where U.S. policy is seen by many critics as driven by a lust for oil.
“People are more aware of the possibility of things going wrong, but there’s not much you can do to be on your guard,” said David Osler, an editor with Lloyd’s List, which tracks international shipping. “The threat is really unpredictable.”
One result of the new environment has been a steep increase in insurance costs and “war risk surcharges” imposed on tanker operators venturing into the waterways of the Middle East and northern India, he said.
“In some cases, these are substantial premiums of tens of thousands of dollars,” Mr. Osler said.
In response to this wide variety of threats, more than 100 nations are planning to send representatives to a special December meeting of the International Maritime Organization in London.
The U.N. agency will be studying proposals to establish mandatory security checks designed to prevent an attack on international shipping interests. A proposal that has already been circulated calls for member nations to study every port and every ship to determine whether the risk is normal, medium or high.
Security plans would then be put in place based on the perceived threat level. If implemented, the proposal would represent a significant change because there are no uniform requirements placed on shippers or port operators.
“There’s nothing in place at the moment. Each country has its own security measures,” said Natasha Brown, spokeswoman for the International Maritime Organization. “These are proposals to amend existing conventions and bring in mandatory requirements to improve security.”