According to popular lore, sea dragons have three heads. The modern "sea dragon" also has three heads-piracy, drug trafficking and international terrorism. Here is one body-money. And this "dragon" is found in all waters, but most of all it tends to the Southern Seas and African shores.

The most ancient of the progenitors of the current "dragon" is piracy. It seems that it has existed for as long as navigation has existed - at least it is reliably known that the Phoenicians were still engaged in this robber trade 1200 years before Christ. A little later, a number of coastal city-states of the Mediterranean voluntarily became part of the Roman Empire, if only that would protect them from the filibusters of antiquity, based on Crete and the small islands of the Aegean Sea. The Middle Ages and Modern times were marked by a new surge of banditry on the seas both in the West and in the East. However, now there is already a legalized form of piracy - privateering. Francis Drake, for example, was granted a noble title by Queen Elizabeth I of England. And in the Southern Seas, whole squadrons and fleets of sea robbers, who grew out of secret societies like the famous Chinese "triads", entered the service of the ruler of the Celestial Empire.

RAMPANT SEA ROBBERY

At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the situation in the South and East China Seas did not change much. For example, in 1995, the Arctic Sea vessel was detained in the Chinese port of Beihai in the Gulf of Tonkin. A month earlier, it was called "Anna Sierra" and was carrying 12 thousand tons of sugar worth five million dollars to the Philippines, but was attacked by pirates near the coast of Vietnam. The crew was not injured: they were simply put on boats in the open sea. The cargo was sold, the ship changed its name and was arrested in China along with ¹² corsairs1 . The newly minted Arctic Sea was released along with its new crew. How much it cost remains a mystery.

According to the authorities of Hong Kong (then it was still under the control of Great Britain), in 1992 - 1994, 90 attacks on merchant ships were committed in the South China Sea, 47 of them by ships of the Chinese Coast Guard, Customs Service and Navy of the PRC. A classic example is the detention of the Singapore merchant ship Hai Mieko by Chinese customs officers ' boats. His entire cargo, which consisted of cigarettes, was quite unreasonably declared contraband and sold under the hammer. In 1998, there was a case in China when reprisals were taken not against pirates, but against the captain of a tanker that was attacked. And this is only information that has reached the public - how many cases of legalized piracy there really were is practically unknown. The Chinese authorities may be turning a blind eye to such illegal actions by "law enforcement officers"on the waters: they are more concerned with the problems of owning disputed waters that conceal the richest oil and gas reserves.

Recent statistics published by the International Maritime Bureau are very depressing: during the last decade, the number of pirate attacks on commercial vessels has tripled, and in the period 1999-2000 alone, it increased by almost 40 percent (from 1991 to 1999, it tripled). Moreover, according to experts, only a third of attacks are recorded. In 2001, there were 335 robberies2 . And already in 2002, according to unofficial data, there were more than 400 robber seizures of ships. At the same time, for the first time, a shift in the center of maritime banditry from the South Seas to the Atlantic was recorded: the number of pirate actions in the waters washing Africa exceeded such incidents off the traditionally dangerous coast of Indonesia for navigation by about a third over the past year.

Bandits operate mainly off the coast of West Africa (Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria), East (Tanzania) and in the Red Sea (operational bases in Somalia). And it is no coincidence: these areas have been hit by a continuous series of wars and bloody inter-ethnic conflicts in the last decade, and the economy and standard of living of the population are at an extremely low level. The picture is complemented by the almost complete corruption of local authorities, which guarantees absolute immunity to the "gentlemen of fortune"who are always ready to pay.

The latest case of attacks on Russian vessels, by the way, was registered off the Somali coast. On February 28, 2003, the tanker Monneron, owned by Primorsky Shipping Company JSC, was carrying a cargo of gasoline from Saudi Arabia to Kenya and was attacked by pirates using firearms and rocket-propelled grenades. Only thanks to the superior speed of the "Monneron" managed to break away from the pursuit, none of the crew members were injured ^.3

After 17 incidents of attacks on Russian ships in 1992, a special group of the Navy was detached from the Pacific Fleet in 1993 to protect shipping. Unfortunately, the results of its activities were not reported.

South-East Asia, with its mass of small uninhabited islands and the really uncontrolled African coast, is not the only place where pirates live. Traditionally, they also operate in the Caribbean Sea and off the coast of South America. With the economy here, too, far from everything is going well, but local drug lords, despite the surrender of certain positions, still feel quite confident, and they have the kindest relations with pirates. The most dangerous place is considered to be the water area of the port of Rio de Janeiro: on February 13 of this year, a Ukrainian merchant ship was attacked by pirates off the coast of Brazil, one sailor was killed, and the cargo was stolen.

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Over the past five years, the area of sea robbery has also spread to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Here, it primarily covered the coastal waters of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Georgia.

The only country that responded more or less promptly to the new threats was Greece. Since 1997, it has been patrolling ships and boats of its Navy near the island of Corfu in order to protect tourism and fishing from Albanian pirates.

How do the current pirates operate? In general, traditionally: they board in the straits, near islands and coasts, in ports. The level of equipment is very different, from knives with ropes (this is typical for ruined local fishermen) to fast, inconspicuous boats with machine guns and small-caliber cannons. The latter often resort to the tactics of "wolf packs", operating at night and from different directions; however, such tactics are only possible for the most organized criminal groups. Freebooters primarily affect relatively small cargo ships with a small crew. However, recently there have been more frequent cases of attacks on passenger ships and yachts, while some of the bandits get on the ships as passengers, which facilitates their subsequent capture. The purpose of the attacks is to take hostages for ransom. In this regard, pirates are already closely linked with international terrorists-just remember the capture of the Italian liner "Aquille Lauro" in 1985, when bandits entered the ship under the guise of ordinary tourists. Tankers were also increasingly attacked. The Maritime Bureau directly attributes this to rising oil prices and progressive poverty in some of the most piracy-prone regions.

In general, according to statistics, at the turn of the century, 25 percent of pirate attacks were on tankers, 23 percent on dry cargo ships, 16 percent on fishing vessels, 13 percent on bulk carriers, 11 percent on container ships, and 12 percent on yachts and other small vessels. However, taking into account the fact that the capture of small vessels is much easier to hide than, for example, container ships, it is possible to assume a distortion of the data provided for the latter indicator by at least several times.

As the number of pirate attacks increases, their brutality also increases-if in 1994 not a single sailor was killed, in 1996 26 crew members of captured ships were killed, in 1997 - 51. 21 sailors were killed by bandits in 2001, although taking into account the missing ships, their number may again be significantly higher. In such cases, it is no longer boats that are used, but ships that were previously captured, repainted and raised someone else's flag, and the crews of the victim ships cannot expect anything good from meeting them: they simply disappear without a trace.

Already, criminal groups operating at sea are equipped not only with boats, but also with light-diving equipment, underwater transporters, hang gliders, light-engine aircraft and helicopters. Next up are submarines, especially ultra-small ones. Over the past five years, only three cases of construction of such submarines (displacement - up to 200 tons, crew - 12 people) have been identified: in Bogota and Cartagena (Colombia), as well as in southern India. In early 2000, a similar attempt was made in the Phuket tourism zone (Thailand), and, of course, in official documents it was listed exclusively as "excursion". Mini-boats, however, can be simply bought or ordered from numerous small shipbuilding firms. In addition, there is also a secondary market, and no longer mini -, but real combat submarines. For example, after the division of the Black Sea Fleet, Ukraine got six submarines, now there is only one left in service. The rest went for scrap or were sold to unnamed buyers.

SURFACE AND UNDERWATER TERRORISM

Pirates actively interact with drug traffickers and terrorists. The interest here is mutually beneficial: the former have experience, the latter-money and technical means. In some cases, the terrorists themselves prefer not to sink ships at sea, but only to seize them along with their cargo: terror is terror, and money is money. The actions of terrorist organizations at sea also contribute to diverting the patrol forces of the fleets of a number of states from the fight against piracy-for example, the Sri Lankan authorities, despite the annual damage from robbery in its waters of $ 200 million, are simply not able to allocate a sufficient number of ships to fight filibusters. In addition, a significant part of the current pirates come from Muslim countries, and from

the same ones that Islamic extremists recruit shaheeds from. But it is not Muslims who become pirates.

A significant example is the terrorist activity of the separatist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which fought for an independent Tamil state on the territory of Sri Lanka before the recently signed truce with the central government. Initially, the construction of a mini-submarine in India was intended to transport drugs, but after its expropriation by local special services, a similar vessel was laid down in Thailand, and it was designed in advance to have special exit hatches for combat swimmers. Overall, the LTTE has become the most seasonally well-equipped terrorist group, as evidenced by a number of results of its activities ^.4

So, its main formation - "Sea Tigers" - is in fact an analog of regular special forces units of the marine corps of developed countries. It consists of up to four thousand fighters, consisting of 12 sections-combat swimmers and surface units, bombers, engineering and shipbuilding structures, communication units, arms supply, training, propaganda, financing, logistics, intelligence and others. As you can see, such an extensive structure can be envied by many traditionally maritime powers.

The arsenal of "sea tigers" is by no means limited to attempts to build mini-submarines or the simplest light-diving equipment. For example, at their secret shipyards, according to the special services, speedboats of four types are being built - fiberglass "Trikka" for throwing light divers (speed 45 knots, which exceeds the speed of any of the patrol boats in the region), combat "Sudai", "Muraj" with three machine guns and, finally, a kamikaze boat "Idayan", packed with explosives with a crew of two suicide bombers.

The exact results of the sea tigers ' activities are unknown, but according to some reports, they were able to destroy more than a third of the original Sri Lankan patrol force, as well as sink the Sagawardana corvette using "wolf packs" tactics. They do not disdain outright piracy. The number of small vessels attacked by them is hardly quantifiable, but

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only among the large ones that sail under foreign flags, only in recent years such as "Irish Mona", "Princess Wave", "Athena", "Meisen", "Murong Bong", "Cordiality", "Princess Cash"appear. The seizures were made for the purpose of obtaining money, and here once again the sinister chain is traced -"piracy - goods - money - terror". It, however, has a continuation - "drugs-money-terror". For this purpose, for example, a special unit is used-a support flotilla-equipped with Mirage-type boats already with guns that are quite capable of resisting any patrol forces. The main thing for them is to cover the ghost ships."

For example, the so-called drug transport fleet controlled by Sea tigers includes up to 30 vessels registered under other" flags of convenience "(Liberia, Panama, Honduras, etc.), and it is possible that their crews may also include citizens of CIS countries. At the same time, legal cover is provided by at least 90 percent of the transportation of ordinary goods, for example, sugar (often from robbed ships), rice, flour and other goods.

The activities of maritime criminal groups are also characterized by their high secrecy, which, for example, is proved by the low efficiency of special services in combating them. For example, Tamil Eelam drug couriers directly linked to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been repeatedly detained in a number of countries, but drug carriers in the South Asian region are still invulnerable at sea. More successful were the activities of the Sri Lankan Navy and Air Force (in 1996 and 1997, two "stealth ships" of the sea tigers were sunk), India (in 1991-1997, three ships were intercepted), Malaysia and Thailand (one each). However, they managed to detain ordinary smugglers, and not drug couriers or weapons shipments. This was also largely due to the high diversification of countries that supply certain types of equipment and equipment for the "sea tigers" - for example, scuba gear and outboard motors were supplied from Malaysia, communications and navigation equipment from Singapore, high - speed scooters from Denmark, optical devices from Germany, airplanes and gliders from Australia ^.5 Individually, all these purchases could hardly arouse any suspicion, but once in the same hands, they turned into a formidable weapon of terrorists.

Until now, the vast majority of pirate attacks (as well as terrorist attacks) have taken place in the waters of the "third world" countries, where there are neither the forces, nor the means, nor the special desire to fight sea banditry. At the beginning of this century, experts predict a shift in the operational zones of piracy to the shores of developed countries in Europe and North America - the growing technical equipment allows them to do this. Similarly, much larger vessels, such as cruise superliners, can become targets of attacks.

The successful attack from the sea of martyrs on the American destroyer "Cole" showed that even warships can become targets of bandits and terrorists.

This attack was a classic example of the effective use of suicide bombers. The attack, carried out on October 12, 2000 in the Yemeni port of Aden, involved only one boat with two martyrs, which in broad daylight hit the target with a charge of 300 kilograms of explosives. At the same time, 17 American sailors were killed and 42 wounded, a 12-by-12-meter gap was punched in the side of one of the most modern warships and gas turbine engines were damaged. The Cole was permanently disabled, and its transportation to the United States and repairs cost almost $ 200 million ^.6 Two years later, in Yemeni waters, despite all the precautions taken, a similar attack was carried out on a French tanker. In both cases, Al-Qaeda operatives are believed to be responsible.

Arab terrorists are well-provided with financial resources, and many of them have little dependence on" ancillary industries " - piracy and drug trafficking. At the same time, the main cash injections came to them from countries known as the main US allies in the region - Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. They have units of well-trained combat swimmers equipped with Soviet SLVI-57, AVM-1 scuba tanks and Proteus-3 combat swimmer transporters ^.7 It is possible that some of the equipment could have fallen into the hands of terrorists after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the collapse of its Armed Forces, including special forces. For example, in the early 90-ies were disbanded units of combat swimmers "Dolphin" with headquarters near Sevastopol. The most experienced professionals, among whom there were many people from the traditional areas of residence of the Muslim peoples of the USSR, were left out of work and without means of subsistence, and it is possible that some of them could have ended up in the Middle East ^.8

Al-Qaeda's plans are striking in scope. In particular, bin Laden's documents seized in Afghanistan, according to some sources, include weapons projects belonging to him

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merchant ships are equipped with operational-tactical SCUD missiles (range up to 600-900 kilometers) and massive attacks on targets on the coast of the United States. SCUD has spread to many countries in a variety of modifications: Iranian, Korean, Eastern European, etc.

THE BACKLASH IS GROWING, BUT SLOWLY

Thus, pirates in the vast expanses of the seas and oceans are rapidly expanding the scope of their activities, but they clearly do not receive an adequate rebuff yet, although there is some progress. So, if the interaction between the countries of Southeast Asia has so far been limited to a belated exchange of information, then recently regular patrols have been established in the Strait of Malacca (Malaysia - Indonesia) and the Sulu Archipelago (Philippines), but so far clearly insufficient forces. Japan has significantly stepped up its actions - after the number of attacks on its vessels increased fivefold over the past four years, the Maritime Protection Department has been significantly strengthened and now has 173 patrol ships with large and medium autonomy (some of them are equipped with helicopters), 103 patrol boats and up to 86 patrol aircraft and helicopters. The US Navy's 7th Fleet also did not stand aside - along with Indian ships, its escort forces began patrolling in the northwestern part of the Strait of Malacca. Delhi also intends to send a group of its warships to the Andaman Sea on a permanent basis in the near future.

Other countries are also stepping up their fight against piracy. So, the Philippines intends to purchase up to 60 new patrol boats, Malaysia-seven patrol ships, including three with helicopters on board.

After the crews of commercial vessels refused to enter the Bangladeshi port of Chittagong, certain measures were taken by the authorities of this country - its ships began to constantly patrol particularly dangerous territorial waters, and in the future Dhaka intends to equip its coast guard with six new patrol boats.

Multilateral international cooperation between the countries of the Asia-Pacific region is also gradually developing. In the torrential zones of the South Seas, combat and patrol ships of Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia are on joint duty (only the latter allocates up to 26 ships and boats and up to 10 aircraft daily for this purpose). An Analytical Center on Piracy has been established in Kuala Lumpur to collect, analyze and disseminate information, search for missing ships, and organize assistance to shipowners. With his help, a number of commercial vessels were equipped with a special Ship - Lock navigation satellite system, and-in at least one case, this brought results - with its help, Indonesian ships in June 2001 were able to intercept the hijacked Malaysian tanker Silaizang and arrest ten pirates.

There are also a number of other international organizations, but most of their activities relate to the exchange of experience, information and improvement of international maritime law. These institutions include the International Maritime Organization, which has been working on piracy since 1983, the ASEAN Working Group on Confidence-Building Measures, the South China Sea Symposium, the Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation Council of the ASEAN Regional Forum, and a number of others ^.9

With the development of technology, piracy and maritime terrorism have become the main threat to navigation, rather than the violence of the elements. And there are great fears that this problem will not be solved by force alone - as long as there is a division of countries into rich and poor, as long as poverty, disenfranchisement and permissiveness of the authorities and gangster groups reign in the "third world" countries, the flow of candidates for pirates of the XXI century will only increase.

¹ Independent Military Review, No. 32, 2002.

² Foreign Military Review, No. 5, 2002.

³ "MD Yesterday", No. 8, 2003.

⁴ Zarubezhnoe voennoe obozrenie [Foreign Military Review], No. 4, 2002.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Foreign Military Review, N11, 2000.

⁷ Independent Military Review, No. 21, 2002.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie [Independent Military Review], No. 32, 2002.

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