"The threat is real," Singapore's Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng told parliament on Friday. This was the first public statement by the Singapore government on the terror threat. Wong spoke of security being beefed up at the new casino resorts owned by Genting Singapore and Las Vegas Sands - a clear indication that the terror threat was not limited to shipping alone, but was also being considered in the context of ports and local tourism.

Nearly 40 percent of world trade passes through the Strait of Malacca, whereas Singapore is the world's top container shipping port.

Terror group or cell?

Wong did not give any information regarding the source of the threat, but analaysts have already been pointing the finger at JI or the Jemaah Islamiya militant Islamist group of Indonesia, said to have links with Al-Qaeda. Most experts doubt that militants are involved in Indonesia's Aceh province, at the northern tip of the strait.

The Abu Sayyaf militant Islamist group of the southern Philippines has also been mentioned, though the possibility is also viewed as being remote. Yet other experts feel the real threat may come from so-called semi-linked or independent terrorist cells.

Very few specifics

Among the very few specifics to emerge from the information given out in the past few days is the fact that the terror scenario the authorities fear most would involve an attack on an oil tanker or a port by terrorists using smaller vessels such as dinghies and speedboats.

Government officials for their part clearly believe that the new terror threat is very different from the wave of piracy that swept the Strait of Malacca in the early 90s and peaked in 2005.

ac/AFP/AP
Editor:Grahame Lucas