Dire Straits

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ith its corrugated iron roofing, bare concrete floors, and red plastic tables and chairs, there's little to distinguish the coffee shop that regulars call "HQ" from other similar establishments on Indonesia's Batam Island. But this is not just another place to eat noodles and drink beer. Batam is only a 15-minute ferry ride away from Singapore, the world's busiest port, and "HQ" is the rendezvous for scores of Indonesian sailors looking for work. Legitimate jobs are hard to come by, however, and that's why, says a thin, short man who calls himself Nurdin, "we'll grab whatever offer comes first, legal or illegal."

Nurdin's last "offer" was a year ago when a middleman sought a crew to bring in a Taiwan-flagged tanker, the Luen Fatt, after it had been hijacked. Nurdin and 13 other sailors steered the ship to the virtually unregulated waters around Batam, he says. Within hours, the cargo of diesel oil was unloaded and the 1,249-ton tanker repainted, renamed and on its way to a broker. Sometimes, Nurdin continues, his clients want only the "skin," which means just the vessel, of a certain size, length and capacity, while at other times it's only the "guts"—the cargo. "When the big boss only wants the skin, we'll try to find a vessel with no cargo, but if he wants just the guts, we'll find another buyer for the ship." Nurdin regards the raiders who actually take over the ship as little more than thugs. "We aren't pirates," he insists. "We're professionals."

Drawing on years of research and information provided by sources ranging from local police to informers, the IMB believes that about five criminal syndicates—probably based in Indonesia and Malaysia—are responsible for most of the larger-scale hijackings like that of the Luen Fatt. And though there are still plenty of local fishermen armed with machetes who board ships, steal a few mobile phones and leave, more sophisticated operations run by the syndicates are becoming the norm. "Previously, attacks were isolated and mounted from one or two boats, but now they are much more coordinated, with pirates using five to six boats in their attacks," says Mukundan. "They are also increasingly heavily armed, with some even using rocket-propelled grenades."

Security specialists fear that opportunistic terrorists might tap that expertise. Since 9/11, Southeast Asia has become a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic extremists bent on carrying out attacks like the October 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. Though hundreds of militants have been arrested since, the regional network of Islamic extremists blamed for Bali, Jemaah Islamiah, is still capable of undertaking an assault on Western interests, as demonstrated in September by the bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed 11. "The increased frequency of piracy attacks, the changing pattern of how the attacks are carried out, lead us to fear the worst, that an operation is being planned, the preliminary preparation is taking place, and the vessels are being readied," says Singapore's Tan. For its part, to tighten security, Singapore has stepped up patrols and random checks, and upgraded its radar tracking of ships.