ONI Quarterly April_2008_Piracy

Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search The ONI Quarterly

April 2008

Office of Naval Intelligence

This Issue:

ONI Support to Combating Piracy » ONI and Combating Piracy pg. 4

» MOTR Case Study pg. 9

» Piracy and the MOTR Plan pg. 12

» Civil Maritime Intelligence pg. 14

Office of Naval Intelligence 2

Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search

April 2008

Piracy and maritime crime still exist today in parts of the

world—modern day equivalents to the Barbary Pirates

the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps defeated in the

Mediterranean two centuries ago. While modern pirates

employ automatic weapons and satellite

phones instead of muskets and sabers, their

motives to take profit by hijacking ships,

cargoes and/or crews remain constant. They

target merchant ships, aid vessels, and even

cruise ships plying major shipping routes.

As noted, preserving the freedom and

security of the seas has been a core

mission of the U.S. Navy since its founding.

As pirates have become more aggressive, the Navy is

responding to suppress these illicit operators based in

Somalia.

In this edition of The ONI Quarterly, we focus on

how ONI supports fleet anti-piracy activities and

collaborates with the merchant shipping community and

government agencies to prevent such rogue activity.

As the Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Security

mandates, international partnerships and coordination

between U.S. services and government agencies are

necessary for achieving maritime security and promoting

the rule of law, ultimately facilitating and defending global

commerce.

In this issue, you will learn about ONI’s long-standing

role in warning commercial shipping interests of

maritime threats, and how ONI analysis factors into the

coordinated response to incidents of piracy and maritime

crime. In a case study of the hijacking of the motor vessel

Safina Al Bisarat off the coast of Somalia, ONI analyst

Dave Pearl demonstrates the complex international

enforcement issues piracy often presents.

We are pleased to share the story of ONI’s anti-piracy

efforts with the readers of The ONI Quarterly.

Introduction from the Commander

Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search

� Quarterly Issue 6, April 2008


Table of Contents

Introduction from 2the Commander CAPT James Everett III

ONI and Combating Piracy 4 David Pearl

Safna Al Bisarat Hijacking: 9A MOTR Case Study David Pearl

Piracy and the Maritime 12Operational ThreatResponse (MOTR) Plan LCDR Dave Brown

Civil Maritime Intelligence 14 Randy Balano

The ONI Quarterly Published by the Office of Naval Intelligence

Commander | CAPT James Everett III

Office of External Corporate Relations

Director | Ruane Langton

Editor in Chief | Robert Althage

Consulting Editor | Amanda Schuler Zepp

Production by Multimedia Services Department

Correspondence should be addressed to The ONI Quarterly, Office of Naval Intelligence, External Corporate Relations (ONI-ODE), 4251 Suitland Road, Suitland, MD 20�95

Tel: �01.669.5670Email: [email protected]

Cover | A Visit, Board, Search and Seizure team from USS Carter Hall (LSD 50) approaches a dhow to inspect for indications of piracy, terrorism or smuggling.

The July 2008 issue of The ONI Quarterly will focus on:

ONI’s Intergrated Maritime Architecture - Creating new

maritime intelligence dissemination capabilities.



When people think about combating pirates, they often think

of warships racing to the aid of a vessel in distress and

saving the day. As such, people may think the Office of Naval

Intelligence’s (ONI) role in combating piracy is employing

the latest and greatest in top secret high-tech

wizardry to direct fleet forces in hunting down

pirates to bring them to justice. While this

may occur on rare occasions, the reality is that

combating piracy on the high seas is the least

desirable and least cost effective tactic, and

ONI’s role in combating piracy is far less pulse-

pounding but no less integral. This issue of The

ONI Quarterly will focus on the role ONI plays

in combating piracy, as well as dispelling a few

myths about piracy along the way.

ONI’s primary role in combating piracy is actually dedicated

to providing the hard working men and women of the

merchant maritime community with accurate and timely

threat warning information. The United States learned a

costly lesson about the need to provide intelligence to the

shipping industry at the end of the Vietnam War. On May

12, 1975, the U.S. flagged container ship SS Mayaguez

was headed directly into a hotspot in the Gulf of Thailand

that had previously seen several acts of aggression against

merchant shipping by forces of Cambodia’s Communist

dictatorship, Khmer Rouge. With the proper threat warning

mechanisms in place, Mayaguez could have easily avoided

the trouble spot. Unfortunately, the various U.S. agencies

that supported the shipping industry and those that tracked

maritime threats were not aware of one another. As a result,

Mayaguez sailed directly into the danger zone and was

captured by the Khmer Rouge. The vessel was eventually

liberated but at great loss of life to U.S. service members.

More than 30 years later, ONI still takes this lesson very

seriously. We work closely with other U.S. government

agencies to ensure high risk areas are identified and

merchant mariners are provided access to threat warning

information. To accomplish this, ONI produces the

Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message which provides

information on threats to, and criminal action against

merchant shipping worldwide that occurred in the last 30

days. Each week this message is posted for worldwide

viewing on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s

(NGA) Maritime Safety Information homepage. NGA then

enters each incident into its publicly available Anti-Shipping

Activity Message database. When specific areas are

identified in the course of threat research and reporting,

ONI coordinates with the Department of Transportation’s

ONI and Combating Piracy by David Pearl, ONI Maritime Armed Crime Analyst


5 Quarterly Issue 6, April 2008


Dec. 10, 2007 - Merchant Vessel Golden Nori is underway after pirates departed the vessel.



Maritime Administration and the State Department to

promulgate special advisories as needed.

ONI’s primary role of providing threat warning to the

maritime industry leads to the ability to provide context

on the exact nature of various maritime threats, like

piracy, to fleet forces and policy makers. After more than

15 years of producing the Worldwide Threat to Shipping

Message, ONI can help customers understand reporting

limitations and identify real threats while weeding out

agenda motivated hype. Not every act of maritime crime

or piracy is reported, and not every incident reported as

an act of piracy actually is one. Only the perpetrators and

the victims know what really goes on out on the water and

there are a host of reasons to downplay or exaggerate

the accuracy of incident reporting. After researching and




reporting on thousands of incidents over the past 15 years,

ONI knows better than most that all piracy-prone areas are

a symptom of socioeconomic and political conditions ashore.

Therefore, efforts to combat piracy without addressing

hard to tackle root causes like poverty, unemployment,

hunger, illegal fishing, organized crime, and corruption is

doomed to be temporary at best. That is not to say that an

enforcement presence afloat is not an important factor—it

most certainly is. However, it is unfortunately the only factor

typically addressed. Ironically, when enforcement efforts

afloat start working and incident reporting goes down,

those enforcement resources are usually moved elsewhere

because they are expensive to maintain. Since the root

causes ashore are usually not addressed, the piracy cycle is

doomed to repeat.

A Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) team assigned to the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall (LSD 50) travels to an Indian cargo dhow to perform a master consent boarding.



Another misconception ONI constantly battles is the

temptation to link piracy with terrorism in order to allocate

resources to combat it. Piracy has been a threat to mariners

and free trade for a long time, and will be around for a long

time to come. The victim looking down the barrel of a gun

standing on the bridge of an underway merchant vessel could

not care less if the masked man with his finger on the trigger

has political or economic motives. It seems unnecessary

to need to read the minds of perpetrators to decide if what

they are doing is worth combating. If anything, combating

piracy for the sake of combating piracy will deny terrorists

any chance of leveraging a piracy-prone environment to their

advantage.

Regardless of political or religious affiliations, piracy is an

issue all nations agree is bad and needs to be addressed.

For example, the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia

created unlikely allies between the United States and North

Korea. When a North Korean merchant vessel temporarily fell

victim to Somali criminals who attempted to hijack the vessel

as it departed Mogadishu, the determined North Korean

mariners battled the Somali hijackers and overpowered them.

A U.S. warship was in a position to respond and rendered

medical assistance in the aftermath of the melee. However,

how nations go about addressing piracy is where things get

sensitive. Through constant monitoring of piracy reporting

and various efforts to combat piracy, ONI is well aware of

these sensitivities. Addressing maritime criminal behavior in

areas like Southeast Asia, where sovereignty concerns are of

utmost importance, requires an entirely different approach

than it does off the coast of Somalia, which currently lacks an

effective system of governance.

Overall, when factoring in the number of incidents reported

and the number of vessels operating around the world, the

odds of falling victim to acts of piracy are low. However,

as long as the risk exists in any form, ONI will continue

to monitor hot spots, warn mariners, and drive efforts

to understand root causes so they may one day finally be

resolved.

Dec. 1�, 2007 - The merchant vessel Golden Nori refuels with the U.S. Navy dock landing ship USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) following its release from Somalia-based pirates on Dec. 12.



Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search Safina Al Bisarat Hijacking:

A MOTR Case Studyby Dave Pearl, Maritime Armed Crime Analyst

In mid January 2006, the Indian flagged cargo dhow

Safina Al Bisarat and its crew of 16 Indian mariners was

on a routine cargo run to Somalia that quickly became

anything but routine. Wooden dhows of this nature make

many perilous trips between the

Middle East and Somalia, bringing

much desired cargo to the war-

torn Somali capitol of Mogadishu.

They then sail south to the Somali

port of Kismayo to pick up charcoal

and bring it back to the Middle

East where much of it is likely used

to fuel the ubiquitous Shisha pipe.

These slow moving dhows simply

cannot afford the time and fuel required to sail out and

around the high risk areas where Somali pirates are

known to hunt for victims. As the Safina Al Bisarat was

returning to the Middle East with its load of charcoal,

it caught the attention of ten Somali pirates who were

divided among three small fishing skiffs and armed with

AK-47 machine guns and rocket propelled grenades.

The slow moving dhow did not have a chance against the

determined pirates, and it quickly fell under pirate control

without anyone hearing a distress call. Ten well armed

pirates now had the perfect mothership to take them

far out to the shipping lanes to hunt for large merchant

vessels that pay large ransoms, and no one was the

wiser.

On the morning of January 20, 2006, the pirated dhow

was just beyond 200 nautical miles off the Somali coast

when a large bulk carrier came within visual range. Likely

based on the speed of the bulk carrier, its distance

and heading to the pirates, and how low it was riding

in the water, the pirates decided to launch their two

smaller attack skiffs. The bulk carrier the pirates were

racing toward was the Bahamian flagged Delta Ranger.

The alert crewmembers aboard Delta Ranger knew to

be on the lookout for Somali pirates due to the many

warnings issued by organizations like the Office of Naval

Intelligence (ONI) and the International Maritime Bureau

(IMB). Delta Ranger’s vigilant master increased speed

and began evasive maneuvers. The pirates responded by

firing at the bridge, trying to intimidate the master into

stopping. When this attempt failed they took up position

on either side of the vessel and brought out makeshift

hook ladders. However, Delta Ranger had a characteristic

the pirates did not account for: The railing on top of the

gunwales was slightly wider than the gap of the hooks

on top of the ladders. This prevented the pirates from



in a position to investigate the report. The ship quickly

hunted down the dhow and then fired warning shots. Then

the most unprecedented thing happened: The pirates

surrendered. The U.S. Navy was now in control of ten

Somali nationals who had just attacked a Bahamian

flagged vessel with Greek ownership in international

waters by using an Indian flagged dhow full of Indian

nationals whom they had hijacked several days earlier.

Now what?

getting their hook ladders locked in and the pirates were

forced to abort their attack.

This failed attack was the start of the pirates’ demise.

Delta Ranger reported the location and description

of the dhow to the IMB’s Piracy Reporting Center in

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The IMB then quickly relayed

this perishable information to the Combined Maritime

Forces Headquarters based in Bahrain. Fortunately, USS

Winston S. Churchill, of the NASSAU Strike Group, was

Jan. 21, 2006 - Dhow controlled by suspected pirates intercepted by the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Winston Churchill (DDG 81).




This is exactly the kind of complex issue the Maritime

Operational Threat Response (MOTR) process is

designed to help coordinate. It was through this

mechanism that ONI was able to provide greater context

regarding the history of the Somali piracy problem to

a host of interagency stakeholders. This issue needed

to be coordinated among a surprisingly large number

of interested parties, including several offices in the

Department of State, Department of Justice, U.S. Coast

Guard, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE),

and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to name a

few. MOTR was the foundation of the process that got

the Somali pirates into the custody of the Kenyan judicial

system within eight days, allowing U.S. naval assets

to get back to the job of maritime security operations.

Subsequently, Kenya found the Somalis guilty of high seas

piracy and sentenced them to seven years in prison.


Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search and Seizure Maritime Operational Threat Response Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message Maritime Advisories Counter Piracy Visit Board Search Piracy and the Maritime

Operational Threat Response (MOTR) Plan by LCDR Dave Brown, NMIC Watchfloor Deputy

The process by which the U.S. government determines

responses to piracy incidents inherently involves a high

degree of interagency coordination. There are many

equities involved which affect the options available to

the United States and shape the eventual

outcome. There are the concerns of the

registry state to consider and those of the

country that actually owns the ship. The

nature and origin of the cargo will impact

the decision maker, as will the citizenship

of the crew members. All of these must be

considered when choosing possible courses

of action.

Enter the Maritime Operational Threat Response

(MOTR) Plan. One of eight supporting plans to the

September 2005 National Strategy for Maritime

Security, MOTR provides a forum in which decision

makers can consider competing interests and

concerns. MOTR aims to achieve a coordinated U.S.

government response to a wide spectrum of maritime

threats against the United States and its interests

worldwide. In addition to piracy, these threats may

include the transport of terrorists and criminals,

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation,

drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, fisheries

incursions, and unresolved radiation alarms.

The MOTR process is essentially a virtual coordination

meeting, in unclassified channels whenever possible, that

brings together several lead and supporting agencies.

The specific nature of the event or threat determines

which agencies are involved and which inherently has the

lead. The Department of Defense is the pre-designated

lead for nation-state and other threats occurring

overseas, such as piracy. The Department of State plays

a key support role by coordinating with flag, state, and

port states to authorize or facilitate operations, and

to provide foreign policy advice and insights to the lead

agency.

Where does the National Maritime Intelligence Center

(NMIC) come in? Under the Global Maritime Intelligence

Integration (GMII) plan, the NMIC is designated as the

strategic-level core maritime intelligence element,

leveraging the existing capabilities of ONI and the Coast

Guard’s Intelligence Coordination Center. As such, the

NMIC is called on to provide tailored intelligence support

to the lead MOTR agencies, providing information to

decision makers that might otherwise be unavailable.


1� Quarterly Issue 6, April 2008


Dec. 1�, 2007 - The merchant vessel Golden Nori comes alongside the U.S. Navy dock landing ship USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41) following its release from Somalia-based pirates on Dec. 12.



The U.S. Navy’s role in combating piracy dates back to

the early nineteenth century when President Thomas

Jefferson sought to end the practice of paying annual

tribute to the Barbary States of North Africa (Tripoli,

Tunis, Morocco and Algiers) to ensure the

safe passage of American merchant vessels

in the Mediterranean. Although the initial

naval operations by American frigates against

the pirates between 1801 and 1805 failed to

“fight these pirates into reason,” Jefferson’s

successor, President James Madison,

ultimately prevailed by dispatching a squadron

of ten ships in 1815. Subsequent American

naval victories against the pirates compelled

their leaders to sign a treaty ending the tribute payments.

Piracy has not been relegated to the history books,

however. It continues to pose a serious threat in certain

parts of the world, facilitated by economic and political

instability, corruption, and jurisdictional disputes in heavily

trafficked strategic chokepoints.

ONI traditionally followed civil maritime issues as part

of its original mission upon its establishment in 1882,

tracking the commercial trading activities of major

Civil Maritime Intelligence by Randy Balano, ONI Historian

maritime powers. During World War II, ONI concentrated

on identifying and targeting enemy merchant shipping to

undermine the Axis Powers’ ability to wage war. In the

Cold War era, ONI closely scrutinized the transport in

commercial vessels of weapons, foreign aid, and other

strategic materials to and from the Soviet Union and

Soviet bloc nations.

A dramatic incident in 1975 illustrated the need for a

new civil maritime mission for naval intelligence. In the

weeks after the fall of Cambodia to Communist forces in

mid-April, naval forces of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s

Communist dictatorship, began harassing and seizing

merchant vessels operating in a regular shipping lane

in the Gulf of Siam near an island the Khmer Rouge

claimed as its territory. Khmer Rouge forces captured 27

crewmen of Thai fishing boats, fired upon a South Korean

freighter, captured seven South Vietnamese vessels, and

held a Panamanian ship for more than 35 hours. When

the Captain of the American merchant containership SS

Mayaguez departed from Hong Kong bound for Sattahip,

Thailand, he had no knowledge of these incidents. On May

12, 1975, as Mayaguez transited the channel, it was

approached by two American-made Patrol Craft, Fast

(PCF) “Swift” boats manned by Khmer Rouge forces that




fired shots across her bow. The ship was boarded and

the 40-man crew taken captive. Failed diplomatic efforts

to win the crew’s release resulted in President Gerald R.

Ford ordering a military operation to secure their freedom.

As the Navy and Marine Corps forces initiated the assault,

the Khmer Rouge was already in the process of releasing

the crew. Fifteen U.S. servicemen were killed, three went

missing and fifty more were wounded in the operation.

The Mayaguez incident clearly illustrated the need to

protect neutral shipping in war zones. Accordingly, ONI

refined its efforts to incorporate protection of U.S. and

allied merchant shipping as a key mission on par with

tracking and destroying the merchant shipping of the

enemy.

In 1980, the protracted “Tanker War” between Iran and

Iraq escalated into attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf,

precipitating an international crisis. The importance of

civil maritime intelligence was rapidly elevated from the

tactical level to the national level. ONI’s merchant analysts

responded by developing a thorough understanding of the

shipping industry. They established legal and effective

means to pass information to and from merchant ships

bearing the flags of many nations, making a significant

contribution to the U.S. Navy’s operation that successfully

escorted 270 merchant ships in 136 convoys during the

war.

The lessons learned and procedures developed in these

operations have been effectively applied to combat the

scourge of modern-day piracy. ONI works closely with

allies, coalition navies, international police forces, and

other international organizations to support anti-piracy

operations around the world.

A P-� took this photo of SS Mayaguez with two Khmer Rouge gunboats tied alongside.


Timely - Relevant - Predictive

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ONI Quarterly April_2008_Piracy