1 Teo, Yun Yun, Target Malacca Straits: Maritime Terrorism in Southeast Asia (2011),
(available at http://www.navedu.navy.mi.th/stg/databasestory/data/relation-of-
country/cooperation-unit/Malacca-Strait-Patrol/Malacca%20Strait%20Terrorism.pdf)
After 9/11 it is no longer far-fetched to imagine that some terrorists might one
day try to steer a floating bomb into a port in the Straits of Malacca, the way hijackers
flew commercial planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001. From a
business standpoint, the boom in south Asian piracy makes a lot of sense. A third of
the world's ships moves through the Malacca Strait and Singapore Strait each year,
including most trade between Europe and China, and nearly all the crude oil that
moves from the Persian Gulf to the big Asian economies like China, Japan and South
Korea. About 130,000 vessels arrive in Singapore each year alone, according to both
Singaporean and international estimates. That breaks down to a ship entering the
strait every four minutes. And the global trade that flows through that bottleneck
only 1.7 miles wide at its narrowest point is growing2. 2/3 of the world’s liquid
petroleum gas, and 1/4 of its sea trade passing through every year provides the
potent ingredients needed to concoct just such an explosive splash.3