Will terrorists turn to piracy?

Will terrorists turn to piracy? Yemen crisis could raise piracy risk, experts say.

By Eric Kulisch

Further chaos from civil strife in Yemen is raising fears in some quarters that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) or criminal elements could take advantage of the power vacuum to establish a stronger operational base and pose a threat to commercial shipping lanes off its coast, according to defense and maritime industry experts.
   Al-Qaeda has long demonstrated an interest in attacking maritime targets, but some analysts say the bigger danger is that the terrorist organization may use its operational freedom to engage in piracy for fundraising.
   The potential threat raises questions about whether the international transit corridor patrolled by foreign navies to protect merchant ships from Somali pirates is too close to Yemen.
   President Ali Abdullah Saleh left Yemen for Saudi Arabia on June 5 to receive medical treatment after being injured in a rocket or mortar attack on his compound carried out by tribal opposition forces that have battled the military in the capital of Sana'a in recent weeks. Eleven guards were killed and five government officials seriously injured in the attack.
   Saleh's vice president and sons, one of which heads the Republican Guard, continue to run the government. Last Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated in several cities, demanding Saleh, his family and associates go on trial.
   The U.S. State Department three weeks ago ordered non-essential embassy staff to leave the country and advised Americans against traveling there. And the U.K. Foreign Office has strongly advised all British nationals to leave Yemen.
   Saleh has been under pressure for months from mostly peaceful demonstrators seeking his removal from office, but has refused to step down and often resorted to force to suppress the protests. The revolt escalated after Saleh's troops attacked the home of an influential tribal leader and former ally late last month. Some government and military officials have defected to the rebel side.
   Fighters with ties to al-Qaeda have made substantial gains in southern regions as they try to take advantage of the power vacuum to grab territory in one of the few areas of the country previously controlled by the weak central government.
   Islamist fighters attacked the southern provincial capital of Houta and the port city of Aden on June 15, according to news accounts from Yemen. There are also reports that rebels aided by Islamic militants took over a couple of southern coastal towns two or three weeks ago.
   “The ongoing unrest has weakened an already fragile economy and allowed AQAP to expand its influence and to make some tactical gains in the tribal areas — in several cases seizing and holding territory now outside of Republic of Yemen government control,” CIA Chief Leon Panetta said in written testimony last week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is reviewing his nomination to become Defense Secretary. “However, despite AQAP’s limited gains, they remain distant from, and largely counter to, the current anti-government movement in Yemen.”

'The problem is not pirates and terrorists hooking up to commit terrorism, but to commit more piracy because terrorists need money. The worst thing is that the Gulf of Aden becomes like a hornet's nest.'

Michael Frodl independent attorney, head of risk consultancy, C-Level Maritime Risks

   AQAP is one of the most active branches of al-Qaeda, having directed the attempted suicide bombing of a U.S. airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 and last fall's placement of package bombs on U.S.-bound cargo jets.
   Saleh, whose security forces receive extensive amounts of U.S. equipment and training, has proven an enigmatic ally in the war against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The long-time dictator has allowed the U.S. military to conduct limited operations as well as cruise missile and armed drone strikes against al-Qaeda hideouts, or had his military launch exercises against al-Qaeda members that pose a threat to his regime. The effort has met with some success, but the fall of his regime or widespread instability would likely increase Yemen's suitability as a safe haven for the terrorist organization, regional experts say.
   Meanwhile, the CIA has accelerated the building a secret air base in the Persian Gulf to target al-Qaeda by drones in case anti-American groups win the power struggle and ban U.S. forces from operating against the Yemeni franchise of al-Qaeda, the Associated Press reported.
   The State Department's counterterrorism coordinator last week said officials are worried that the turmoil in Yemen could push al-Qaeda militants and al-Shabaab rebels in Somalia closer together.
   Al-Shabaab is a militant Islamist group that is fighting the weak transitional government supported by Ethiopia and the United States. U.S. officials have downplayed any connection between Somali pirates and al-Shabaab, but there are numbers of reports that al-Shabaab has demanded protection money in exchange for allowing pirate groups to continue their activity without interference in areas of the country it controls. Some observers even believe that al-Shabaab is now directly involved in piracy itself.
   'The problem is not pirates and terrorists hooking up to commit terrorism, but to commit more piracy because terrorists need money. The worst thing is that the Gulf of Aden becomes like a hornet's nest,' said Michael Frodl, an independent attorney who advises maritime insurance interests about the piracy situation off Somalia, and as head of risk consultancy C-Level Maritime Risks authors a weekly analytical service.
   Last year, AQAP leader Anwar al-Awlaki publicly expressed a desire to hit western ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, but experts believe the threat is more rhetorical in nature and discount the likelihood of the group trying to sink vessels. Documents recovered by U.S. Special Forces during the raid in Pakistan that resulted in Osama bin Laden's death last month showed the terrorist leader aspired to hijack and detonate oil tankers in waters off non-Muslim nations. There was no evidence of any serious planning to carry out such an attack.
   The group did launch two successful attacks out of Yemen — one in 2000 killing 17 sailors on the USS Cole docked in the Port of Aden and in 2002 on the French tanker Limburg near the Bab al-Mandab straits connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Affiliates have also attacked oil platforms in the northern Arabian Gulf and 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was reportedly planning to maneuver a large vessel packed with explosives close to an oil tanker or use small speedboats as waterborne bombs to sink the ships, according to Martin Murphy, a visiting fellow at the Corbett Center for Maritime Policy Studies at King's College, London, who has written several books about piracy.
   Frodl said in a client note that al-Qaeda would likely calculate that the economic impact on Western economies of a tanker attack would be minimal and not worth the effort. He noted that an attack on a very large crude carrier 30 months ago, and a hijacking of another one this year, had a negligible impact on spot prices for crude oil. Last year's attack on the Star oil tanker by a group out of Oman further demonstrated the technical limitations of terrorists because the improvised explosive device was detonated too soon and only caused minor damage, experts said.
   'Al-Qaeda would have to pull off successfully at least two out of three, if not three out of four, nearly simultaneous attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Aden so as to get anyone in the oil market to take notice and jack up the prices high enough' to cause an economic impact, Frodl wrote.
   Better planned attacks in the future will occur as tankers approach a port, offshore loading facility or choke point and involve multiple small, high-speed boats laden with high-explosive shaped charges that can penetrate armor, severely damaging the vessel and causing an enormous spill, Capt. James Staples, a former merchant marine captain with extensive operational experience in the Middle East, predicted in a column published by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement last October.
   Some have speculated that the naval coalition in the area might consider moving the Internationally Recognized Transit Corridor (IRTC) south across the Gulf of Aden, where it could receive potential shore-based support from Somaliland. Early this month a court there sentenced six pirates to 45 years in prison.
   There are signs that some countries are considering giving the breakaway state, which covers most of the northern shore of Somalia, the diplomatic recognition it has sought since declaring independence 20 years ago. It has remained relatively peaceful while the rest of the country descended into warfare. The African Union has opposed the idea of changing African borders for fear of sparking secessionist movements, but the impending recognition of South Sudan as part of a brokered settlement with the Sudanese government sets a new precedent, Somaliland officials say.
   Kenya has recently indicated it supports the recognition of Somaliland as an independent state, according to Somaliland press reports. Somaliland Foreign Minister Mohammed Omar told Gulf News that Somaliland plans to open an embassy in the United Arab Emirates in the future.
   A handful of western countries say Somaliland deserves to become a separate country.
   Last fall, the U.S. government announced a dual-track strategy of continuing to support the transitional government in Somalia while also increasing engagement and support for Somaliland, Puntland and local administrative entities that can establish basic institutions of government and restore peace.
   Somaliland officials are actively pursuing foreign direct investment to help create jobs. Coca-Cola recently announced that it will not reopen its bottling plant in Somalia's dangerous capital, Mogadishu, and instead will invest $10 million to open a plant in Somaliland.
   The semiautonomous state has held three successful elections and does not have any pirates operating from its section of coast.
   The disintegration of Yemen as a nominal state could pose a problem for merchant shipping in a number of ways, depending on how events transpire, said Laurence Smallman, a defense research analyst at the RAND Corp. Disorder on land can create conditions that allow piracy to flourish, as it did when Somalia became dysfunctional and jobless men used the government's inability to stop foreign trawlers from poaching coastal fishing grounds as a pretext for capturing fishing vessels and holding them for ransom.
   'A lot of the Somali pirates have traditionally done business with Yemeni gunmen so you may see a greater amounts of arms flows going to pirate syndicates, further increasing their firepower on ships,' said Peter Chalk, an international security analyst and colleague of Smallman's at RAND.
   The combination of turmoil in Yemen, no effective government in Somalia and political uncertainty in Egypt following the recent revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak is creating a climate of instability favored by terrorists, and criminals interested in smuggling, illegal fishing and dumping of hazardous materials at sea, he said.
   Al-Qaeda might also resort to piracy the same way the Irish Republican Army used to rob banks to fund its political and military activity against the United Kingdom, said Smallman, a former Royal Navy officer.
   Any deterioration of security in Yemen, aside from giving criminals there an opportunity to pursue crimes at sea, will degrade the government's ability to patrol waters and protect shipping along its coast, he added.
   Yemen's navy has limited capabilities, but does provide some deterrent. Yemen installed a few years ago a $26 million coastal security surveillance system from an Italian manufacturer consisting of 12 radar stations, six local control centers, and two mobile sensors linked to a national control center to help stem weapons smuggling, human trafficking and piracy. The international coalition will be further stretched and the ability of merchant ships to pass close to Yemen — making it more difficult for pirates to reach them without being interdicted by navies — could be jeopardized if Yemen itself becomes a source of danger and its maritime forces are not involved in security, the analysts said.
   The unrest is also likely to negatively affect the operations of the International Maritime Organization's recently established Maritime Information Sharing Center in Sana'a, according to Jakob Larsen, a maritime security officer for BIMCO, an association representing independent ship owners. Eleven Middle East and African nations are assigned to the center, which is designed to receive piracy pirates, coordinate law enforcement response in the region and respond to requests for information. He acknowledged it is difficult to ascertain if the facility has provided any benefit since it opened in February.
   'Can one maintain commerce through a chokepoint like the Gulf of Aden if on both sides you have a failed state?' Frodl wondered.
   The U.S. government's position is that Yemen is far from resembling Somalia at this point.
   'While the United States is closely monitoring developments in Yemen and elsewhere across the region, we have not seen any linkage between events in Yemen and pirate activity in surrounding waters. The root cause of piracy in the region is state failure in Somalia,' said Donna Hopkins, coordinator for counter-piracy and maritime security in the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in a statement e-mailed to American Shipper.
   Smallman said moving the IRTC south is premature without actual evidence that piracy is emanating from Yemen, especially since it is not clear that organized criminal enterprises there would necessarily opt for piracy over other types of illegal activity. Decisions on how best to protect private vessels are best made by commanders in the region that have good intelligence about the situation, he said.
   'You potentially might see pirates operating out of Yemen' if the situation disintegrates, Murphy said in an interview.
   'We know Somali pirates have hidden themselves in Yemeni territorial waters. The Yemeni coast guard had some effect, but if they're not paid (regular salary in the event of a government collapse) they may turn to piracy themselves. They have the skills to do vessel boardings,' he said.
   Frodl forecast that as AQAP takes or shares control of coastal towns in Yemen, it 'will work out new support and profit-sharing arrangements with Somali pirates,' who have been quietly using Yemen as an overnight rest and refueling stop. The relationship would be similar to the way al-Shabaab extracts 'taxes' and fees from pirates in Somalia ports it controls.
   'We think that if Yemen implodes we could seriously be looking at an increase of threats that could make a Gulf of Aden transit cost effective for only the most desperate shippers, or only for the tanker business that has no other option than to simply shut down,' he wrote.
   That eventually could mean that 'low and slow' vessels will avoid the Suez Canal route altogether, which would represent a major loss in toll revenues for the Egyptian government. The only vessels that would be able to function in the area are fast containerships that can operate at 20 knots or more and oil tankers reloading at the Saudi port of Jeddah that are heavily armed or escorted by warships, Frodl said in a phone interview.
   Such a scenario, he added, might encourage Egyptian authorities to finally support security efforts in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
   'If you reduce the amount of ships going through the Gulf of Aden, you'll probably have more piracy against fewer ships and more violence. It means that ships that do go by will be attacked much more vigorously' by pirates frustrated by the limited amount of revenue-bearing targets, he said. ' Eric Kulisch