Unconventional attack from the sea?

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To counter terrorists, you need to think like one. That will be the case to thwart terrorists who want to match, if not exceed, the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

September 11 came from the sky in a somewhat unconventional way. Terrorists turned fully-fueled airplanes with passengers into cruise missiles, crashing them into the symbols of U.S. economic and military strength: the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In their desire to at least match the destructive effect of those attacks, terrorists will look for another "creative," unconventional approach.

This time, it could come from the sea.

In recent months, the issue of port security reached fever pitch over the prospect that a government-owned company of the United Arab Emirates was to manage a number of U.S. ports.

Ports oversee the annual movement of some 6 million containers, of which the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Agency inspects perhaps 3-5 percent. Indeed, CBP has little counterterrorism intelligence to support its efforts.

In all, an estimated 7,500 foreign-flag vessels make some 51,000 U.S. port calls each year.

Yet, an attack from the sea may not necessarily come from a container offloaded from a ship.

Instead, merchant ships under terrorist control could be fashioned into floating nuclear bombs. It wouldn't take many such vessels and terrorists with state-sponsor support are assessed to have such a capability.

These terrorist ships, however, would not have to enter into a U.S. port. They only would need to come near one, thereby bypassing the much-ballyhooed "National Maritime Security Strategy" of container security.