Security at Sea

Specially trained troops are needed to fend off maritime threats

UNIPATH STAFF

With the hazy hills of the Egyptian Sinai lolling in the background, a passenger ferry steams dangerously close to shore at the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Terrorists have seized control of the bridge and engine room. Hundreds of passengers are at their mercy. But the hijackers seem dazed by the swarm that appears seemingly out of nowhere on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Black rubberized speedboats nip at the ferry’s hull, and attack helicopters flit above its deck, disgorging dozens of multinational commandos: Jordanians and Americans trained in the ways of warfare on the water.

The maneuvers are far from easy. Special operations forces spent about two weeks preparing for the assault that required the use of swaying ropes and scaling ladders. The natural motions of the surf, the ship’s wake, the desperation of the terrorists — all can play havoc with mission success.

Jordanian Capt. Abdullah Muflah provided running commentary for a pavilion full of onlookers during this maritime special forces display at Jordan’s Eager Lion military exercise in June 2013. “We worked hard for the missions we may face in the future,” Muflah said as the multinational team restored order aboard the hijacked ferry offshore. 

Special operations in and around water entail unique risks. Whether they are preventing strikes upon gas and oil platforms in the Arabian Gulf, clashing with pirates in the Indian Ocean, rescuing hostages on ships in the Red Sea or performing underwater demolition and demining, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines demand specialized training and resources to do the job. Dependent on the sea for commerce, nations of the region have invested in special operations forces competent in a marine environment.

Multinational effort

Pakistan is among the leaders when it comes to developing maritime special operations forces. Not only has Pakistan supplied admirals and commodores to command Combined Task Forces patrolling the Indian Ocean and other waterways, the nation’s commandos have honed skills at exercises such as AMAN 2013 near Karachi that featured helicopter assaults on pirate boats, boarding drills and free-fall water jumps.

In Iraq, special operations forces operating in and around Basra have focused on coastal security to ensure that the country’s most vital port remains open to the world, a mission helped in no small part by the United Arab Emirates’ donation of dozens of fast attack boats to the Iraqi Navy.

Jordan’s Red Sea coastline holds an importance far out of proportion to its length. So supplying specially trained troops to protect ships and cargo moving in and out of Aqaba commands the full attention of the country’s military leadership.

“It is my earnest belief that harmonious maritime action to combat threats such as piracy, terrorism, narcotics, arms and human trafficking is the key that can collectively benefit all countries,” Rear Adm. Khan Hasham bin Saddique, former commander of the Pakistan fleet, said on the eve of AMAN 2013 in March 2013.

Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were among the 40 countries that provided thousands of personnel to the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise 2013. Based in Manama, Bahrain, the exercise, dedicated to protecting shipping from underwater explosives, stretched from the Arabian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf of Oman.

“There are six major maritime chokepoints in the world; three of them are here in this region: the Suez Canal, the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz,” Vice Adm. John Miller, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, told an international audience at the conference.

“So why is that important? Nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil transits through the Strait of Hormuz every day. Imagine the effect on the global economy if suddenly that oil stops flowing. This region is important to the whole world.”

Patrolling for pirates

The Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) is a coalition of more than 20 navies that has patrolled 2.4 million square miles of the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman for close to a decade.

As of late 2013, Pakistani commanders had led the CMF’s Combined Task Force (CTF) 150 six times, conducting counterterrorism and maritime security operations from South Asia to the Horn of Africa. The country has also provided rotational commander for Combined Task Force 151, charged with combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden since 2009.

In the summer of 2013, Field Marshal Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, commander in chief of the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF), reaffirmed his support for the mission by hosting then-CTF 150 commander, Commodore Asif Khaliq of Pakistan, at BDF headquarters.

Khaliq moved on to Yemen, where he met Brig. Gen. Fouad S. Basuleman, acting chairman of the Yemen Coast Guard. Somali piracy was only part of a conversation that included illegal immigration, weapons smuggling and illegal drugs.

Interdictions at sea — operations that militaries call visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) — are generally handled by regular naval forces. Special operations forces are summoned to board larger boats manned by hostile crews. Militaries began formal VBSS training after 1990 in response to United Nations resolutions against smuggling, piracy and terrorism.

It’s a field in which Pakistan excels. The Pakistan Navy Special Service Group serves as the country’s special operations arm at sea and has served in the counter task forces in and around the Indian Ocean.

The Pakistani commandos lent their expertise to their Saudi counterparts at the 10th Naseem Al Bahr exercise between the two countries in January 2013. The highlight of that military cooperation between the Special Service Group and the Royal Saudi Naval Special Forces was a simulated assault on a pirate ship.

The worldwide naval coalition has racked up successes in the battle against Somali piracy, which has been declining since its peak in 2011. Nevertheless, the World Bank, in a report published in 2013, noted that piracy near the Horn of Africa drains billions of dollars from the world economy and afflicts countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and the Gulf states disproportionately.

“While the international community has made great strides in fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia, the UAE believes that maritime piracy, notably in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean, remains a serious global concern,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed said in preparation for Dubai’s hosting of the third international counterpiracy conference in September 2013.

Diversity of threats

UAE and Bahrain commandos — with an assist from their Italian counterparts — stormed a vessel during a visit, board, search and seizure exhibition at Port Zayed in Abu Dhabi. The Soldiers weren’t looking for illegal narcotics, pirates or hostages. They were on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The event was part of Leading Edge 13, an exercise hosted by the UAE tasked with stopping proliferation of WMD, whether the agents are radiological, chemical or biological. As Leading Edge suggests, regional threats extend well beyond piracy.

For example, the International Mine Countermeasures 2013 Exercise included a segment devoted to Maritime Infrastructure Protection: defending harbors and oil and gas platforms against attack, predominantly those installations in the Arabian Gulf.

The caliber of speakers highlighted the importance attached to the topic: Vice Adm. Ali Hussein Alrybye, head of the Iraqi Navy, and Lt. Cmdr. Mubarak Ali Al-Sabah, chief of operations for the Kuwaiti Coast Guard.

Explosive-laden boats — including attack craft disguised as unarmed dhows — have threatened oil installations off the coast of Iraq and Kuwait in the past. 

In addition to showpieces such as rescuing hijacked ships, Jordan’s annual Eager Lion exercise typically includes low-key underwater demolitions training between partner nations. The goal is to protect ships’ hulls from underwater attack.

With so many countries of the region reliant on the sea for their economic survival, maintaining forces of elite troops trained to operate in such an environment will be vital.

As the UAE’s Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed said in an official statement in September 2013: “The focus is on regional capacity-building in order to allow countries in the region to control their own shores and patrol their own waters.”