Last updated: 13 Nov 12 @ 03:22  |  

Long-term solutions to the organised criminal threats faced by ports must come from governments

A terrorist attack on a busy port facility could have devastating economic consequences. But Robert de la Poer finds ports are also facing a growing threat from organised criminal groups, and asks what steps the leading security providers are taking to protect against them

In the aftermath of the suicide attack on the USS Cole in October 2000, while governments around the world were re-assessing their whole conception of domestic security and counter terrorism, the realisation dawned that the world’s ports – and the ships that frequented them – represented a large and potentially disastrous target for terrorist attacks. Up to that point, the major threat to port security had been criminal activity, whether in the form of cargo theft or the smuggling of illegal goods, weapons, narcotics or people. As a consequence, port security up until 2001 had been aimed more at protecting cargo and deterring criminal activity than protecting the port facilities themselves.

But the attack on the Cole and the 9/11 attacks a year later forced the realisation that Islamist terrorists wished to attack the world’s – and in particular

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