6790847185

Krzysztof CHOMICZEWSKI

BIOTERRORISTIC THREAT IN MARITIME TRANSPORT

Summary

World trade is dependent on maritime transport. The maritime transport system is vulnerable to being targeted and/or exploited by terrorists for attacks. It is vulnerable because the system is largely open and porous enough that terrorist can enter and/or manipulate it according to their purposes. Sea-going vessels can be the vector for, or target of, attacks. They can also serve to facilitate other attacks and/or raise revenue for terrorist organisations. According to experts of OECD, the principal terrorist risk factors related to shipping are: cargo, vessels, people and financing. Cargo can be used to smuggle people and weapons or to transport conventional, nu-clear, Chemical and biological weapons. Biological weapon remains to be one of the most dan-gerous types of weapons of mass destruction, particularly in case of its use in bioterroristic attacks. Most of the world’s non-bulk cargo travels in marinę shipping are containers. After the World Trade Centre attacks, attention ąuickly shifted to the possibility that containers could be used to conceal and deliver relatively crude weapons of mass destruction. In a worst case sce-nario, a terrorist organization could pack a global positioning satellite-enabled weapon of mass destruction within a shipping Container, introduce it into the international transport system using legitimate shippers, intermediaries and carriers, and remotely detonate the weapon upon its arri-val in the heart of major population centers. The likelihood of success of such operation would be heightened by that fact that only a smali number of containers are ever physically strictly examined. The detection of biological agents shipped in seabome containers presents the most difficult problem and current detector technology probably would be ineffective. Bulk ship-ments also pose a danger because of the dangerous naturę of some of their cargos. Vessels can be used as a weapon in a terrorist strike. In such cases, a vessel can be used against a population centers adjacent to port facilities or shipping channels, to damage port facilities themselves or to sink the vessel and błock access to a port facility. Terrorist incidents involving ships have tended to target vessels or its passengers. The vessels can be used to smuggling terrorists, too. There are approximately 1,5 million officers and ratings manning the merchant fleet and an uncountable number of fishermen or sailors. The risk factor is that some seafarers, or individual posing as seafarers, may actually be accomplices to and/or members of terrorist groups. The latter is especially worrisome given that seafarers have traditionally been granted relatively liberał travel rights by govemments through non-immigrant crew list visas, or simply upon presen-tation of their seafarer identity documents. The economic costs of a terrorist attacks using, or targeting, maritime transport, are very high and difficult to gauge.