Surveillance of Maritime Traffic

Mr Vikram Nair asked the Minister for Defence following the two recent incidents of ship collisions in our territorial waters, what is the Maritime Security Task Force's assessment of (i) our capabilities for surveillance of maritime traffic and (ii) our ability to respond to scenarios where commercial vessels that are in or entering Singapore waters can be used by terrorists.

Mr Speaker, ensuring maritime security for our ports and surrounding waters is of high priority to Singapore. This is because disruption to sea traffic along the Singapore Strait will impact not only our local economy but also globally as half of the world’s total annual sea-borne trade and 70% of Asia’s oil imports pass through our waterway. As the Member also highlighted, terrorists can target ships in our waters or attack from the sea, as they did in the Mumbai incident in 2008.

In dealing with terror threats at and from the sea, Singapore adopts a whole-of-Government (WoG) approach to ensure a comprehensive coverage of varied scenarios as well as coordinated responses. This approach led to the setup of the Singapore Maritime Crisis Centre (SMCC) in 2011, which brings together the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), the Police Coast Guard, the Singapore Civil Defence Force, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), and Singapore Customs. SMCC maintains a comprehensive maritime situation picture, shares information among the agencies and coordinates responses to deal with potential threats.

SMCC leverages technology to analyse information, detect suspicious patterns, and cue relevant agencies to investigate and take action. Let me provide two examples. In 2015, for example, SMCC detected a potential Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) sympathiser who was on board a tanker calling into Singapore. That individual was barred from entering Singapore. In another case in 2016, SMCC received information about a hijacked tanker. This information was shared with the Indonesian authorities as the vessel was in their waters. This led to the ship’s rescue, and, in that case, the hijack was not linked to any terror intent.

Also, as part of the WoG efforts, the RSN's Maritime Security Task Force (MSTF), which the Member asked specifically about, feeds its information to SMCC. This information is obtained from monitoring close to a thousand ships passing through the Singapore Straits each day, through a network of sensors, such as coastal surveillance radars, electro-optic devices and RSN ships on patrol. This surveillance is continuous both in the day and at night.

The MSTF's key focus is on potential threats to Singapore. This is what Mr Vikram Nair alluded to, while the MPA watches over the navigation of ships in our waters. For both purposes, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea mandates the use of the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to identify ships at sea. This AIS, however, does not apply to warships. For ships that are not required or have not complied with vessel identification, their presence can still be detected via our network of coastal surveillance radars and electro-optic devices.

On a daily basis, MSTF conducts threat evaluation for every vessel calling into Singapore's ports or transiting through the Singapore Straits. MSTF does this by deploying analytic tools to build profiles of each vessel based on attributes, such as their voyage, owners, crew and cargo, as well as additional data shared by Government agencies. MSTF would then decide the appropriate operational responses, which include, for example, closer monitoring, escorting or even boarding the ship to mitigate the threat.

Let me now move on specifically to the two recent incidents asked about by the Member. With regard to the two recent incidents which resulted in collisions, our sensors had detected and identified the vessels involved in both the collisions. In the case of the USS John S McCain and the Alnic MC, both were detected in our waters off Pedra Branca. The RSN vessel RSS Gallant, which was patrolling our waters, had also established communications with the foreign warship as part of standard procedures. Likewise, for the case of the dredger JBB De Rong 19 and tanker Kartika Segara, both were detected and identified prior to their collision that took place within Singapore waters off Sisters’ Island.

In both these incidents, none of the ships was designated as potential threats to security, and correctly so. As such, in compliance with standard protocols, they did not require close monitoring by MSTF. And by the rules of navigation under the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, the master and crew of the vessels involved were responsible to guide their ships safely through. The various parties involved in the collision will now have to investigate what went wrong and what remedial actions to take, if necessary. The Transport Safety Investigation Bureau is also conducting an investigation and has announced that it will make the findings public.

I thank the Minister for the reply. In relation to the two collisions, I understand that we were able to detect the ships, but they were not subjected to a higher level of security and, therefore, additional steps were not necessary. What would the measures be if, for example, there was hostile intention detected on the paths of one of the vessels? Would that have been different?

Those are very pertinent questions and not theoretical at all. We saw what happened in the Mumbai attack, and there are many scenarios. If we had, for example, pre-emptive information that a particular ship was carrying either illegal cargo or had malignant intent towards Singapore, it could amount to boarding the ship or keeping it under close surveillance.

There are various scenarios played out. This is what MSTF does in its exercises, if you have kept up with the number of exercises that we have had at sea, various scenarios are played out, whether it is cruise ship, whether it is cargo, and what kind of scenarios may result, including hostage-taking. They are varied to the extent possible. The planners, our security agencies and, together with the other agencies under SMCC, do play out these scenarios.

We have, over the years, stepped up the level of exercises, and there is a certain level of competency. I do not want to give the false impression that all attacks can be mitigated. If there are suicide attacks, sometimes, it is difficult to stop them. But this is a situation where we continue to look at the scenarios, continue to exercise, continue to anticipate.