2004-09-16
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, SINGAPORE


A major military exercise involving Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore opened here Sept. 10 with an anti-terror sea drill included in the program for the first time.

More than 3,500 personnel, 31 ships, 60 aircraft and two submarines from the members of the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) will join the annual war games aimed at maintaining their ability to work together in case of war.

A mock operation to track and recover a vessel hijacked by terrorists will be part of the two-week Exercise Bersama Lima (Five Together) 04 in the South China Sea, on top of the FPDA¡¯s traditional focus on conventional threats.



Speaking at the opening of the exercise, FPDA officials deplored the Sept. 9 bomb attack against the Australian embassy in Jakarta that left nine people dead and more than 180 wounded.

¡°The horrific bombing in Jakarta yesterday is yet another grim reminder that terrorism is a clear and present danger in this region,¡± Singapore¡¯s chief of defense force Lieutenant General Ng Yat Chung said.

¡°No one country has the ability to deal with trans-national terrorism on its own,¡± he said.

Founded in 1971 to protect Singapore and Malaysia under a conventional warfare scenario, the FPDA has evolved into a vehicle for military cooperation with Singapore and Malaysia now boasting modern armed forces.

Ng said that as the security environment changes, the members of the FPDA ¡°will adjust the arrangement¡± in order to ¡°remain relevant to the current security environment.¡±

Singapore Navy fleet commander Colonel Chew Men Leong, the current FPDA exercise director, said ¡°there are various non-conventional threats that the FPDA members potentially face, ranging from terrorism to piracy.¡±

¡°Among these threats, maritime terrorism is of pressing concern for all FPDA members,¡± he added.

Experts warn that the global maritime industry is vulnerable to terrorist attacks and that ships rather than airplanes could be used to hit critical targets. The Straits of Malacca and Singapore are among the world¡¯s busiest waterways.

According to a report published by Singapore¡¯s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), the al-Qaida terror network could easily infiltrate the ranks of seafarers or resort to piracy in order to seize vessels.

Terrorists could steal a crude nuclear or ¡°dirty¡± radiological device and explode it in a major port city, or use ships to transport operatives and weapons or attack larger vessels, the report said.