Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and more specifically since the London 7/7 attacks in 2005, the UK has been slowly coming to terms with being a major terrorist target. However, whilst ‘climate change’ is a theme being taken up across virtually all government departments, the same is not yet true of counter terrorism. Yet the threat of terrorism potentially affects almost every sphere of government. Major international sporting events now have specific terrorist threats against them. For example, the Hockey World Cup and Commonwealth Games both due to take place in India in March and October respectively have each received very specific threats from an affiliate of al-Qaeda. In short, we cannot assume that anything will be immune from the threat of Islamist terrorism. It is therefore somewhat odd to say the least that the government have not made preventing terrorism a cross departmental responsibility in the way that they have made tackling 'climate change'.
One illustration of the present government’s lack of joined up thinking on preventing terrorism is the large number of oil tankers that for the last year have been anchoring off the East Anglian coast as a result of a series of government decisions or more recently lack of decisions about them.
This fleet of tankers numbering 30-40 at any given time and including some of the world’s largest supertankers has in the last 12 months become one of the highest concentrations of oil tankers in the western world (research by the Daily Mail last year showed that even UK oil ports normally have only 4-6 tankers anchored offshore - see map). The issue only came to light last summer when Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer asked the government why so many tankers were anchoring off the North Suffolk coast in his constituency. It subsequently transpired that the government had, without any local consultation, secretly made an agreement with oil companies that this would be the one place in UK waters where ship to ship oil transfers would be allowed offshore. This has led to it becoming the international location for tankers from accross the world to transfer Russian oil to supertankers that are too large to enter the Baltic. In response, Mr Gummer very rightly raised serious concerns - the Suffolk coast happens to be an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) as well as being home to internationally important nature sites and is heavily dependent on tourism, all of which were potentially threatened by any oil spillage. There has followed a series of government ministers saying that they were moving ‘quickly’ to ban the practice. These included Transport Secretary Lord Adonis, who 'hoped' it might be banned before Christmas 2009 and Deputy Minister for the East of England Bob Blizzard MP, off whose Waveney constituency some of the tankers are anchored. Mr Blizzard recently announced that legislation would be laid before parliament ‘as early as May’, which for anyone with the slightest knowledge of the electoral process means ‘not in the lifetime of this parliament’. This week the government finally started a six week ‘consultation’ on banning these offshore oil transfers…before it drafts a statutory order which on current timescales is unlikely to come into force until 1st October…
However, as well as the environmental concerns that John Gummer has so rightly highlighted, there is also a significant security issue raised by having the largest concentration of tankers in the western world anchored just off our shores.
Since 9/11 al-Qaeda and its ideological associates have made very specific threats against the oil industry. This is partly because Islamists tend to regard western use of Middle Eastern oil reserves as a particular grievance. For example, Bin Laden’s ‘Message to the Americans’ of 6th October 2002 stated:
“You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of your international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.”
However, more importantly the economic impact of the 9/11 attacks led a number of Islamists to focus part of their strategy on causing maximum economic damage to the West. Bin Laden in particular realised that oil has an immense potential as a weapon of economic warfare. In a December 2004 speech he urged his followers to engage in suicide attacks against oil targets:
“Mujahidin be patient and think of the hereafter, for this path in life requires sacrifices, maybe with your life…Remember too that the biggest reason for our enemies’ control over our lands is to steal our oil, so give everything you can to stop the greatest theft of oil in history from the current and future generations in collusion with the agents and the foreigners, oil,…which is the basis of all industry, has gone down in price many times. After it was going for $40 a barrel two decades ago, in the last decade it went for as little as $9, while its price today should be at least $100 at the very least. So keep on struggling, do not make it easy for them, and focus your operations on it…”
Whilst oil installations particularly in Saudi Arabia and Yemen have been a focus of Islamist attacks, the ships which carry 60% of the world’s oil supply have also been specifically targeted. A number of planned terrorist attacks on tankers have been thwarted by US and other forces. However, in October 2002 the French supertanker Limburg carrying almost 400,000 barrels of oil was attacked off the coast of Aden (Yemen) by a suicide boat, similar to the one that had attacked the USS Cole in Aden almost exactly two years earlier.
Significantly there have also been specific threats against British tankers close to European waters. In June 2002 the Moroccan government arrested a group of al-Qaeda operatives suspected of plotting attacks on US and British tankers in the Straits of Gibraltar.
The intention of such attacks is not primarily physical damage, but economic impact. A few months before the planned attacks on British and US tankers off Gibraltar an online jihadist article appeared about the advantages of bombing tankers which stated:
"it is well known that the American economy will not be able to endure whatsoever the rise in oil prices."
A fundamental principle of security planning is to make oneself less of a target, or at least a more difficult target to hit, than others. Terrorists always look for weak spots. Allowing the greatest concentration of oil tankers in the western world, including some of the world's largest supertankers, to anchor off our coast doesn’t quite seem to qualify as making us less of a target…
Astonishingly, it is our own government that has actually caused this concentration of tankers from around the world to anchor off the Suffolk coast by specifically designating this as the one place in the UK where offshore ship to ship oil transfers would be allowed. Both this and the government’s continued dragging of its heels over when it will finally ban this practice does not simply indicate a degree of incompetence. Perhaps more significantly, it also indicates the government’s real state of thinking about preventing terrorism. Whilst tackling climate change is now a cross departmental responsibility, it would appear that the same degree of priority has yet be given to preventing terrorism.
What this situation illustrates is that the UK needs a government with a whole new paradigm in the way it thinks about preventing terrorism.
