US and allies brace for weapons trafficking in high seas

It was a scenario straight out of a Tom Clancy spy novel. The United States passed on intelligence to its allies that dangerous chemicals could be shipped from a Northeast Asian country to a port in the Arabian Gulf.
Japan sent out information that some ships fitting the profile of the suspect vessels had been monitored heading for their destination via the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.
After a tense 36-hour search spanning 600 nautical miles and aided by satellite technology, elite Singapore divers rappelled down a helicopter and stormed a merchant vessel singled out from thousands plying the route.
Six speedboats soon pulled alongside and a multinational force including chemical and biological warfare experts and customs officers boarded the vessel, which was then escorted under heavy guard to Singapore.
The exercise, demonstrated to journalists and foreign military observers watching from aboard the RSS Endurance, a Singapore Navy landing ship-tank, showed how multinational forces would foil a terrorist attempt to smuggle nerve gas components from a "Northeast Asian" country to a port in the Middle East.
Participants said holding the drills in Southeast Asia for the first time was important because the region has two of the world's busiest shipping lanes - the Singapore and Malacca Straits.
By coincidence, the drill took place after six-nation talks to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programme ended in Beijing last month with no solution in sight.
The Stalinist regime in Pyongyang has long been seen as a potential rogue weapons supplier to shadowy regimes and organisations.
Participants in last week's 13-nation Exercise Deep Sabre said the drill underscored the need for greater international co-operation to stop the smuggling of components that can be used to assemble weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The exercise in the South China Sea about 60 kilometres (100 miles) off Singapore was part of the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) aimed at preventing terrorists from exploiting free trade to export lethal cargo.
Launched in 2003, the PSI allows for the seizure of missiles and other potential components of WMD while being transferred at sea or in the air.
While Washington says 60 countries have expressed support for the PSI, key legal questions remain over the interdiction of suspect ships in international waters or in seas belonging to a country that does not back the initiative.