MS Risk Blog

Vessel Hijacked in Southeast Asian Waters Released

On 11 June, the owners of the Malaysia-flagged tanker ORKIM HARMONY lost contact with the vessel and reported the event to authorities, fearing the vessel had been hijacked. Over the following days, the vessel remained undetected until it was located on 18 June in Cambodian waters.

Military and marine police forces from Malaysia and Australia had been trailing the vessel, with Malaysian authorities indicating that they were in contact with eight of the pirates on board the vessel and that they were trying to negotiate a peaceful surrender.

On Friday, Malaysian navy and maritime officials disclosed that the hijacked oil tanker ORKIM HARMONY has been released by pirates, who fled in the ship’s rescue boat. According to officials, the vessel was now being escorted by the navy to Malaysia’s Kuantan Port. Malaysia’s Chief of Navy Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar indicated that after the tanker was hijacked, the pirates repainted the ship and changed the vessel’s name to Kim Harmon. One member of the 22 crewmembers on board the vessel, sustained injuries during the attack, suffering a gunshot wound to the thigh.

On 22 June, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) reported that five pirates involved in the hijacking of the ORKIM HARMONY remained at large. Last week, eight Indonesian pirates were apprehended by the Vietnam Coast Guard, just a day after the vessel was located. The group was reportedly trying to escape from navy ships and aircraft in the ORKIM HARMONY’s life boat. At a press conference on Monday, the MMEA’s deputy director-general, Ahmad Puzi Ab Kahar, disclosed that there were a total of 13 attackers involved in the hijacking, adding that the five pirates still at large are believed to have been separated from the group that was apprehended last week. According to the deputy director-general, they were responsible for manning a tugboat, which was first used to approach the vessel. The tugboat was found abandoned in Batam, Indonesia, over the weekend however there were no signs of the pirates. Ahmad Puzi has disclosed that all thirteen assailants are believed to be professional maritime criminals, additionally, he disclosed that those who are currently in custody have a high-degree of seafaring knowledge and criminal records for piracy. Malaysia is currently in the process of extraditing the eight assailants that were detained by Vietnamese authorities. The group is believed to be part of a larger piracy network that operates in Southeast Asian waters.

This hijacking is the second seizure of a tanker by pirates operating in Southeast Asia this month, and has raised concerns about further such attacks in the region. On 4 June, an oil tanker, ORKIM VICTORY, carrying diesel loaded from Petronas, was hijacked in the same area and on the same route. The vessel was later released by the hijackers after they siphoned off about 770 metric tonnes (6,000 barrels) of its cargo.

Suspect in 1982 Paris Attack Arrested in Jordan

According to a source close to the case, the suspected mastermind of an attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris France in 1982, which left six people dead and injured 22 others, has been arrested in Jordan.

Zuhair Mohamed Hassan Khalid al-Abassi was one of three men for whom France issued an international arrest warrant earlier this year. According to a French legal source, he was arrested on 1 June and an extradition request is underway. An official source from Jordan has indicated that “ a court (has) imposed a travel ban pending a decision on whether he will be extradited.”

According to a Jordanian source close to the case, extraditing to France the suspected mastermind of the attack may prove difficult as “Jordan does not usually extradite its citizens to other countries, even in the case of an extradition agreement,” adding, “in such a case, they are generally tried in specialized Jordanian courts.” Al-Abassi appeared, without legal representation, before Judge Talal al-Saghir, who specializes in extradition cases. According to the source, when asked if he was the person being sought by Paris in connection with the attack, the suspect replied in the affirmative. The judge has since ordered that Al-Abassi’s passport be surrendered. The suspect has been released on bail, pending resolution of the issue. According to security sources, Al-Abassi was detained in the city of Zarqa, which is located some 30 kilometres (18 miles) northeast of Amman.

Between three and five men are believed to have taken part in the attack, which was blamed on the Abu Nidal Organization, a Palestinian militant group. The other two main suspects in the attack have been named as Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, who lives in Ramallah in the West Bank, and Walid Abdulrahman Abu Zayed, who is a resident of Norway. The attack on the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant, in Paris’ Marais district, began around midday on 9 August, when a grenade was thrown into the dining room. Two men then entered the restaurant, which at the time had around 50 customers inside, and opened fire. They also shot at passers-by as they escaped down the street. The entire incident lasted several minutes. Over the years, the investigation has made little progress.

Guatemala on Brink of Crisis Amid Corruption Scandal

Guatemala’s government is thinning with a string of high-profile resignations and arrests of top officials following the revelation of a corruption scandal inside President Otto Perez Molina’s administration. Massive protests gathering thousands of Guatemalans have been organized via social media in order to demand the President’s resignation. This is the first time in Guatemala’s recent history that a broad cross section of society including students, politicians, the country’s powerful business lobby, indigenous peoples, and members of a historically passive middle class, joined together in a unified call for the removal of corrupt officials.

The initial scandal that sparked public anger involves a criminal network that has been called La Linea (The Line), in reference to a certain mobile phone number importers called to negotiate the amount they paid in customs taxes. Thanks to this network, businesses could receive an illegal discount on the required fees when their property cleared customs. About 50% of the balance was then paid to the state. The rest went to a network of defrauders that included corrupt officials and their collaborators.

On April 16, Guatemalan authorities arrested 22 people including the current and former heads of Guatemala’s tax collection agency. This 8-months investigation was the result of a joint effort between the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, a UN-backed institution charged with investigating and helping disband clandestine and parallel power structures linked to the state, and Guatemala’s Public Prosecutor’s Office. Prosecutors estimate that Guatemala lost at least $120 million in tax revenue just in the 8-months period to the scam. As the investigation continues to unfold, it has also revealed an inter-connected web of judicial corruption that’s been nicknamed the “Law Firm of Impunity”, resulting in investigations into judges and justices on Guatemala´s Supreme Court. Iduvina Hernandez, a political analyst and the executive director of the Association for the Study and Promotion of Security in Democracy said: “the parallel power structure that has been revealed through the CICIG’s investigations is derived precisely from the existence of a larger pact of impunity.» In the case of La Linea, top officials and individuals allegedly raked in millions in dollars per year while state institutions lacked important resources for education, medicine, and basic security.

Additionally, just a week later a second investigation by CICIG and the Public Prosecutor’s Office revealed another corruption scandal within Guatemala’s Social Security Institute. The institute had awarded a kidney dialysis contract to the company Drogueria Pisa in exchange for kickbacks to government officials, including IGSS employees as well as the head of the Guatemalan Central Bank. Pisa had no expertise providing the treatment, and 13 have died since. A total of 17 public officials have been arrested, but most notable has been the arrest of the president of the board of the IGSS, Juan de Dios Rodriguez who was a powerful former military man and who once served as President Perez Molina’s private secretary.

Such corruption scandals within the government and at different levels triggered massive movements of demonstrations and rocked President Perez Molina’s administration. Vice President Roxana Baldetti was the first to step down, handing in her resignation on May 8. Although she wasn’t implicated in the initial corruption investigation, she was plunged into controversy when her private secretary, Juan Carlos Monzón Rojas, was identified as the leader of the fraud ring. Shortly after her resignation, Baldetti was also placed under investigation. As investigations continue, high-level officials in a number of major executive branch offices have resigned or been fired.

Moreover, President Otto Pérez Molina has dismissed or asked for resignations from his chief of intelligence, the ministers of the environment and of energy and mines, and his interior minister, among others. Many of the ousted officials are members of Pérez Molina’s inner circle and are under investigation for various acts of alleged corruption.

However, these ministry shake-ups have not been enough to quell calls for the president’s resignation and demonstrations continue to fill Guatemala’s streets. The crisis is playing out ahead of presidential elections in September, with polls giving a large lead to Manuel Baldizón, a populist right-wing tycoon. This is the deepest political crisis of the post-war era in Guatemala. But it remains unclear whether it will eventually strengthen or dangerously undermine the country’s still-feeble democracy. On June 10, Guatemala’s Supreme Court accepted a petition to allow Congress to decide whether to revoke President Perez Molina’s immunity from prosecution for possible involvement in acts of corruption. President Perez Molina has stated that he will not resign in spite of the public movement against him. The situation in Guatemala is currently highly flexible and many scenarios could play out in the coming weeks.

Ebola Update (18 June 2015)

In the week leading up to 14 June, there was a total of 24 confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) reported, compared with 27 cases that were recorded in the previous week. In Guinea, 10 cases were reported during this period in four prefectures: Boke, Conakry, Dubreka and Forecariah. Sierra Leone reported 14 cases in 2 districts, Kambia and Port Loko, during this reporting period.

Of the 76 confirmed cases of EVD that have been reported in Guinea and Sierra Leone over the past 21 days leading up to 14 June, 69 (91%) were reported in 3 prefectures in Guinea (Boke, Dubreka and Forecariah) and 2 districts in Sierra Leone (Kambia and Port Loko).

As of 14 June, there have been a total of 27,305 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of EVD in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 11,169 reported deaths.

Guinea

During this reporting period, a total of 10 confirmed cases of EVD were reported, compared with 12 cases from 4 prefectures that were reported in the previous week.

Cases were reported in 4 prefectures: Boke (2 cases); Conakry (1 case); Dubreka (4 cases); and Forecariah (3 cases). Of these 10 cases, 5 were registered contacts, including all four cases in Dubreka. Of the remaining five cases, 4 arose from an unknown source of infection. This includes both cases from Boke prefecture and 2 of the 3 cases that were reported in Forecariah.

In Guinea, health checkpoints have been set up in the western prefectures of Boke and Coyah. On 7 June officials in Dubreka carried out a 6-day door-to-door case-finding campaign, which led to the discovery of 1 confirmed case. Additionally, intensive investigations are currently underway in order to trace a number of high-risk contacts associated with 3 cases that were reported in the capital, Conakry, over the past two weeks.

Sierra Leone

During this reporting period, a total of 14 confirmed cases were recorded in 2 districts: Kambia and Port Loko, compared to the 15 cases that were reported in the same 2 districts the previous week.

For the third consecutive week, Kaffu Bullom in Port Loko reported the most cases, six in total, of any single chiefdom. According to officials, five of the six cases from Kaffu Bullom were contacts of previous cases in quarantined homes located in a small, densely populated area near the international airport. One case, however, was reported from a new area of the chiefdom, Targrin, and upon further investigation, the case was determined to have acquired infection after sharing a ward with a confirmed case in a privately run health facility. A total of twenty health workers have since been registered as having a medium – high-risk contact with the case and are currently being monitored by officials. The remaining 8 cases that were reported in Sierra Leone were registered contacts of known cases and were reported from quarantined homes in 4 chiefdoms: Magbema (1 case); Samu (1 case); and Tonko Limba (4 cases) in Kambia and Bureh Kasseh Ma (2 cases) in Port Loko. As of 14 June, the Western Urban Area, which includes the capital city Freetown, has reported no cases for over 16 consecutive days.

Officials have disclosed that all 14 cases that were reported in the week leading up to 14 June can be traced back to the secret movement of cases, contacts and secret burials of EVD-related deaths during April. Consequently, officials are planning to carry out a large-scale operation in the districts of Kambia and Port Loko.

On Friday 12 June, Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma announced that he was imposing a three-week daytime curfew in the last Ebola-hit areas in a bid to curb a resurgence of the deadly virus. The curfew announcement comes after the country on Thursday extended its nationwide state of emergency for 90 days, despite calls from opposition politicians to relax restrictions in the country’s Ebola-free districts.

The president made the announcement on state television, stating that he was imposing “with immediate effect a 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM chiefdom-level curfew” in parts of the northwestern districts of Kambia and Port Loko, which are the only areas that are still reporting new infections. The president has indicated that people in the worst-hit chiefdoms, or areas, of those districts will be confined to their homes for 21 days, warning that anyone found flouting the order would find themselves in jail for the same period. Grocery stores and markets, which have been ordered to close at 6:00 PM, will now be allowed to stay open until 9:00 PM in most parts of the country, while restaurants, which also had a 6:00 PM curfew, have been granted an extension until 10:00 PM. Motorbike taxis, which were previously barred from operating after 7:00 PM, have been given an extra two hours.

The latest lockdown has been called over fears that the disease, which has killed about 3,900 people in Sierra Leone, was making a comeback in the northwestern region of the country. Palo Conteh, head of the National Ebola Response Centre, has attributed the recent spike in Port Loko and Kambia to “people just being stubborn and engaged in the wrong things that fuel the transmission,” adding “some washing of bodies and secret burials are going on and people are taking the sick to herbalists.” A lawmaker is on bail awaiting trial for allegedly ordering the washing, dressing and burial of his 106-year-old father in Kambia in May. Amadu Koroma, a local government clerk in Kambia, has disclosed that herbalists were frequently bypassing official entry and exit points to treat patients in southern Guinea, the epicentre of the outbreak, adding “people have also been escaping from quarantined homes at night and ending up in Port Loko where relatives bring in herbalists to threat them in locked rooms.”

While neighbouring Liberia was declared Ebola-free in May, hopes that Sierra Leone and Guinea would quickly follow suit have, in recent weeks, been dashed. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the retreat of the virus “that was apparent throughout April and early May has stalled.”   Sierra Leone’s health ministry has reported that 22 people are in Ebola treatment centres, all in Kambia and Port Loko, while 342 people are in quarantine in those districts and the Western Area, which includes the capital city, Freetown.

Al-Qaeda Leader Believed Killed in Libya…Again

Pentagon officials have indicated that they believe they hit their target – an al-Qaeda-linked commander who led a deadly attack on Algerian gas facility in 2013. However uncertainty surrounds the US airstrike on eastern Libya, and whether Mokhtar Belmokhtar was actually amongst the militants said to have been killed in the bombing, as al-Qaeda and other militants deny that Mokhtar Belmoktar was killed in the US airstrike.

Libyan officials have reported that Sunday’s airstrikes hit a gathering of militants on a farm outside Ajdabiya, a coastal city located about 850 kilometres (530 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli. A US official has indicated that in the airstrikes, two F-15 fighter jets launched multiple 500-pound bombs, with authorities confirming that there were no US personnel on the ground for the assault. However since these reports emerged, there have been conflicting reports on how many were killed, and whether Belmokhtar was amongst them.

An initial assessment indicates that the bombing that targeted Belmokhtar was successful, with Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, disclosing that “post-strike assessments” were still underway on Monday in order to determine whether the Algerian militant was in fact killed. Maj. Mohammed Hegazi, a military spokesman for Libya’s internationally recognized government based in the eastern region of the country, also disclosed Monday that further tests were needed in order to identify the dead, which numbered at least seventeen. He added that amongst those killed were three foreigners – a Tunisian and two unidentified militants. While Hegazi criticized his own government for rushing to confirm late Sunday that Belmokhtar was amongst the dead, he disclosed that the raid was based on solid intelligence, which indicated that militants forced out of the eastern city of Benghazi by fighting there had taken refuge in Ajdabiya. While both the Libyan and US government are leaning towards Belmokhtar having been killed in the strike, conflicting reports from al-Qaeda and Islamists operating in the region have emerged in recent days.

A Libyan Islamist with ties to militants indicated Monday that the airstrikes missed Belmokhtar but that they had killed four members of a Libyan extremist group that is linked to al-Qaeda, Ansar Shariah, in Ajdabiya. The group has been tied to the 11 September 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Another militant has also reported that Belmokhtar was not at the site of the airstrike. However a news website, which has previously carried statements from Belmokhtar, indicated that he was in Ajdabiya, meeting with affiliates. The Mauritanian website quoted informed sources in Libya stating that six people were killed in the raid and that a Tunisian and Yemeni were wounded.

On Tuesday, Ansar al-Shariah denied that Belmokhtar was killed in the US airstrike. In a statement, the group named seven people it said were killed in the US strike in eastern Libya, however Belmokhtar was not among them, with the statement indicating “no other person was killed.” A second statement released by an umbrella group for militias called the Shura Council of Ajdabiya and its Surroundings also did not list Belmokhtar among the dead.

If officials do confirm Belmokhtar’s death, this would be a major success for US counterterrorism efforts as he is one of the most-wanted militants in the region, with a US $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. However this is not the first time that authorities have claimed to have killed him. He was previously though to have been killed in Mali, however security sources disclosed last year that he had moved to Libya.

Belmokhtar, who is believed to be 43 years old, fought in Afghanistan, where reports emerged that he lost his eye in combat. He was one of a number of fighters who have been battling Algeria’s government since the 1990’s. He later joined al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), before forming his own group, which led the January 2013 attack on Algeria’s Ain Amenas gas complex that killed at least 35 hostages, including three Americans. Reports later emerged that he was in Libya, with US officials believing he was based in the western and southern parts of the country. The US has filed terrorism charges against Belmokhtar in connection to the attack in Algeria, including conspiring to support al-Qaeda, use of a weapon of mass destruction and conspiring to take hostages. Officials maintain that he remains a threat to US and Western interests.

AQAP Confirms Death of Leader

Meanwhile in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has confirmed that Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of the offshoot militant group, has been killed in a US drone strike in Yemen, in what is the heaviest blow to the jihadist network since the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

His death was announced by AQAP in an online video, with prominent al-Qaeda militant Khaled Omar Batarfi, a senior member of the group, stating Wuhayshi “was killed in a US drone attack that targeted him along with two other mujahedeen,’ who were also killed. The video statement was dated 15 June. The militant group, which has been behind several plots against Western targets including the deadly attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris earlier this year, indicated that it has named its military chief Qassem al-Rimi as its new leader.

Confirmation of Wuhayshi’s death comes after US officials had earlier reported that they are reviewing intelligence to confirm that he was killed in a CIA drone strike that was carried out on 9 June. Yemeni officials have reported that Wuhayshi was believed to have been killed last week in a raid in the al-Qaeda-held Mukalla, in the southeastern Yemeni province of Hadramawt. A Yemeni official further disclosed that last week, a drone had fired four missiles at three al-Qaeda militants, including an unnamed “leading figure,” near Mukalla port, adding that all three were killed on the spot. Witnesses also reported an explosion that killed three men on the seafront last Friday, adding that al-Qaeda gunmen had quickly cordoned off the area and gathered the remains, leading them to believe that a leader was amongst those killed.

Wuhayshi, a Yemeni believed to have been in his 30’s, travelled to Afghanistan in the late 1990’s where he attended al-Qaeda’s Al-Farouk training camp, and fought alongside Bin Laden. He would later become Bin Laden’s close confidante. As US forces closed in the battle of Tora Bora in late 2011, he escaped to Iran, where he was later arrested and extradited to Yemen, where he was jailed until escaping in February 2006. He became head of AQAP in 2007. US officials have indicated that he built one of the most active al-Qaeda branches, with Washington considering AQAP to be al-Qaeda’s deadliest branch. As well as the Charlie Hebdo attacks, which killed 12 people, AQAP was also behind an attempt to blow up as US commercial airline on Christmas Day 2009.

The US State Department had previously offered a US $10 million (£6.4 million) reward for anyone who could help bring Wuhayshi to justice, adding that he was “responsible for approving targets, recruiting new members, allocating resources to training and attack planning, and tasking others to carry out attacks.”

Since late January 2015, AQAP has lost a number of high profile figures in US strikes, including religious official Harith al-Nadhari, ideologue and spokesman Ibrahim al-Rubaish and religious and military official Nasser al-Ansi, along with several other lower ranking figures.