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* MARCH 4, 2010, 8:57 A.M. ET Singapore Warns of Strait Attack By WAYNE MA SINGAPORE--Terrorists may be planning attacks on oil tankers and other large ships in the Malacca Strait, the Singapore Shipping Association said Thursday, citing an advisory from the Singapore Navy. The warning, if accurate, may signal a tactical shift for terrorist groups operating in the region that would include sea-based targets. The navy's Information Fusion Centre "received an indication that a terrorist group is planning attacks on oil tankers in the Malacca Straits," it said in the advisory, which was reviewed by Dow Jones Newswires. "This...

The Secret Anti-China Message Behind Obama's Mission To Yemen Joe Weisenthal Jan. 9, 2010, 11:13 AM The war on terror is back, though the story has moved from Afghanistan (which is ostensibly now in nation-building mode) to Yemen, which up until recently, many Americans probably had never heard of. Asia Times has an excellent overview of the situation written by former Indian ambassador M K Bhadrakumar. What's most interesting is his analysis of Yemen through the lens of the broader tension between the US and China. Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control...

"Sir, you have done India proud." That was how the anchorman of a television channel in Delhi addressed the Indian navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, on the victorious sea battle by warship INS Tabar with would-be hijackers as dusk was falling on Tuesday evening in the Gulf of Aden. Those words would have made Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century British navigator and slaver-politician of the Elizabethan era, truly envious. Sir Francis had bigger claims to fame in a life cut short by dysentery while attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1595. Unsurprisingly, the patriotic Indian media dutifully expressed its gratitude...

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Navy will install radars at nine locations along the Malacca Strait to support security maintenance in the busy shipping lane, a spokesman said here Saturday. "The Indonesian Navy has decided to install radars at nine points along the Malacca Strait to strengthen security in the air over the region," the Indonesian Navy Headquarters` spokesman, Commodore Abdul Malik Yusuf, said. The decision to take the measure was a follow up to the agreement between the strait`s littoral states, namely Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, to conduct coordinated patrols in the channel. At a meeting of the...

GLOBAL INSECURITY Private navies combat Malacca Strait pirates Waterway now so dangerous for shipping, Lloyd's classifies major seaway as warzone Posted: July 31, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Ship captains navigating the Malacca Strait no longer have to depend on the slow response of government – or sheer luck – to safely pass through the pirate- and terrorist-infested waters since private navies have begun providing escort services for ships through the strategic seaway. The Strait, passageway to a third of the world's crude oil, has long been treacherous, with gangs armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other modern weapons...

When 35 pirates carrying machine guns and rocket launchers boarded a tanker laden with methane in the Malacca Strait in March, it sent a shudder through the crew, and a ripple of fear from Tokyo to Washington. It also served as a reminder of the risks to world trade, and of the potential for terrorism in the region. The attack on the tanker turned out to be routine highway robbery in the strait, whose waters are shared by Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. But in the nightmare scenario, terrorists using the methods of modern-day pirates seize a gas tanker and use...

A spate of pirate raids on ships in the Malacca Strait could tempt terrorists to stage a seaborne attack, the vice-commandant of the US Coast Guard said Friday. We have some concerns that what the pirates might be doing is showing the terrorists where opportunities exist," Vice-Admiral Terry Cross told reporters. Cross, who is on a tour of Asia to bolster maritime cooperation and port security, was speaking against the background of five pirate attacks on ships in the Malacca and Singapore straits in the past six weeks. The Malacca Strait is used by about 50,000 ships a year carrying...

A huge Japanese-owned crude oil tanker came under attack from a gang of pirates in the Singapore Strait but managed to shake them off through the captain's evasion tactics. ``Pirates in seven small fishing boats surrounded the tanker and attempted to board it late Tuesday,'' said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Center. The 150,000-tonne Yohteisan, the length of a football field, was headed east just past the southern tip of the Malacca Strait in heavy rain and poor visibility when the incident occurred near Indonesia's Karimun islands. Choong said the captain's tactics to...

KUALA LUMPUR: Three crewmen on a Japanese tugboat seized by pirates were released unhurt in southern Thailand after being held captive for a week, officials said. Two Japanese seamen -- 56-year-old captain Nobuo Inoue and 50-year-old chief engineer Shunji Kuroda -- and Filipino crewman Sangdang Paliawan, 31, were freed late Sunday near the coastal town of Satun, just north of the Malaysian border. "They were found late Sunday near Satun. They are safe and in good health. They will be taken to Penang (in Malaysia)," Masaru Aniya, a spokesman for the Japanese embassy told AFP. [. . .] Kuroda said...

Pirates release 2 kidnapped sailors JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP/AFP) - "Pirates on Saturday released two Indonesians they seized days before off the island of Borneo, but the fate of Japanese sailors in a separate attack was still unknown, a navy spokesman said. Brig. Gen. Malik Yusuf told The Associated Press that the hostages - the captain and ship engineer of KM. Tri Samudra - were released at Paning River in Indonesian Borneo, known as Kalimantan. Earlier, Yusuf mistakenly reported the release of two sailors kidnapped Monday when pirates attacked the Idaten, a Japanese-registered tugboat, in the Malacca Strait, a busy shipping...

Thursday, March 17, 2005 at 04:22 JST KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia's Marine Police are looking at ways to step up security in the Malacca Strait following the abduction of three crew members of a Japanese-owned tugboat, but a senior officer rejected Wednesday a proposal to allow the Japan Coast Guard to patrol the busy sea lane. "It shouldn't be. It cannot happen," Marine Police Force Commander Abdul Rahman Ahmad said, pointing to the complication of overlapping borders in the strait, which is flanked by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, besides political issues that would arise. (Kyodo News)

SINGAPORE - Preliminary investigations by US intelligence agencies have yielded no direct evidence linking piracy to terrorism. Yet the possibility of an alliance between piracy and terrorism cannot be ruled out. Piracy provides lucrative means of raising funds with which to purchase weapons for terrorists. In turn, terrorist groups can provide the expertise with which pirates may better avoid capture or arrest by lawful authorities. Such a possible collaborative relationship brings vital benefits to either party. If circumstances allow, terrorist bases and safe havens may even provide the necessary protection for pirates to hide their operations and activities. With the...

Strait: Target for terror By Ioannis Gatsiounis KUALA LUMPUR - While it benefits some parties to talk up the threat of terror - whether to gain a contract or a foothold in a foreign land - the Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian governments, burdened with monitoring the world's busiest strait, would like nothing more than to prove to the world that everything's under control. Indeed, with 600 vessels and 11 million barrels of oil passing through the Malacca Strait each day, everything has to be under control. So it followed that on July 20, in conjunction with the three countries'...

Welcome back to Asia Times On Air's special coverage of "Fire in the Strait". I'm Gary LaMoshi, in Hong Kong. For those just joining us, here's what we know so far. At approximately 8am local time today, about three and a half hours ago, a tanker traveling through the Malacca Strait waterway carrying highly flammable liquefied natural gas, or LNG, slammed into a second tanker loaded with approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil docked at a refinery in Singapore. Both ships burst into flames, now engulfing the refinery. There have been dozens of casualties among both crews of the two...

Ship captains have written to maritime authorities expressing fears for their lives on voyages through the Malacca Strait after a spate of violent kidnappings in June, an ocean crime watchdog said on Tuesday. The Indonesian, Singapore and Malaysian navies began coordinated patrols of the Strait of Malacca shipping lanes on Tuesday to combat piracy and terrorism in the vital and dangerous waterway through which more than a quarter of world trade passes. "A few weeks ago the situation in the Malacca Strait was pretty bad, especially in the north," said Noel Choong, manager of the UK-based International Maritime Bureau's Asian...

KUALA LUMPUR, (AFP) - Inviting the United States to patrol the Malacca Straits could see a transfer of the superpower's own problems to the region, Malaysian foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar said in remarks published here. Malaysia has repeatedly rejected the idea of US anti-terrorism patrols in the straits and has criticised neighbouring Singapore for apparently suggesting that it was incapable of protecting the crucial waterway. "In the case of the Straits of Malacca, the littoral states are Malaysia and Indonesia. But we can work with other countries, including Singapore which has the Straits of Singapore which joins (the Malacca...

<p>U.S. military commanders in the Pacific warned Congress yesterday that North Korea could provide nuclear arms to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.</p> <p>Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, leader of the U.S. Pacific Command, and Army Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, commander of U.S. forces in Korea, testified about the danger of nuclear terrorism at a budget hearing for the House Armed Services Committee.</p>