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An international effort that includes the U.S. Navy has prevented potential terrorist attacks in Asian seas and waterways aimed at disrupting global commerce, a high-ranking Naval officer said Monday in Pittsburgh.

"There has been planning that has been thwarted, so we have to be on the guard," said Vice Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, a Butler County native and commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet since August 2004.

Although the fleet operates on the other side of the world, the trade it helps protect has a large impact on the U.S. economy, he said.

Greenert, who spoke to reporters at Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum & Memorial in Oakland, also commands an anti-terrorism task force that includes Army Rangers, Navy Seals and an Air Force component. The Seventh Fleet's responsibility includes 52 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian oceans. The fleet includes 70 ships and submarines, nine aircraft squadrons, and about 20,000 sailors and marines.

Part of the fleet's job is to keep the oceans secure for Allied and friendly nations of the regions that account for more than $220 billion in trade with the United States, according to the Navy. At least 98 percent of this commerce moves by sea. In that region, the United States also has long-standing security treaties with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and the Philippines.

"There is a strain of al-Qaida in Southeast Asia, called Jemaah Islamiya. They are actively pursuing a maritime terrorism capability," including diving and mining training, said Greenert, 52, a 1971 graduate of Butler High School and 1975 graduate of the Naval Academy with a bachelor's degree in ocean engineering. "There has not been (an attack) in the Seventh Fleet arena. However, there has been a host of them defused."

Kate Starr, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said she could not comment on Greenert's remarks. President Bush has said Jemaah Islamiya was the organization behind a failed plot to crash a jet airplane into an office tower in Los Angeles.

Greenert said the most notable terrorist training activity has occurred in eastern portions of Malaysia and the south Philippines.

Within the past two years, the Indonesian and Malaysian authorities have disrupted several terrorist plans in that region before they reached execution phases, and have helped foil terrorists that "might have targeted a U.S. Naval vessel," Greenert said. He said he could not be more specific because of intelligence concerns.

"We've had some success," Greenert said. "The terrorism situation in the Philippines ... is improving. We have interrupted the network. We've had limited success in arrests. The literal arrests and law enforcement are generally done by" countries where terrorists are operating.

The last terrorist attack against a U.S. Navy ship took place Oct. 12, 2000, when al-Qaida carried out a suicide mission against the USS Cole, a destroyer attached to the Fifth Fleet in the Gulf of Arden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors died and another 39 were injured when a small craft exploded as it approached the Cole.

Greenert said the Seventh Fleet's program is part of a worldwide ocean-going anti-terrorism network.

"With the help of countries (in the region) and the various intelligence networks, we patrol in and around the Southeast Asian archipelago. Our job is to interrupt, intercede and deter the movement -- in the maritime sense -- of terrorists, terrorist equipment and any terrorist acts," he said.

"One of my nightmares would be a maritime terrorism attack in the Strait of Malacca," Greenert said.

That relatively narrow waterway between Indonesia and Malaysia handles heavy traffic to and from the Indian Ocean, South China Sea and the Pacific. About 40 percent of Asia's oil, including at least 80 percent of Japan's oil, travels through the strait, Greenert said. Japan's security is one of the Seventh Fleet's top priorities.

"Symbolically alone, if there were a maritime terrorist attack in the Strait of Malacca, it would have tremendous negative impact" economically, Greenert said. "If you have any kind of free market economy, you are sort of inextricably connected out there.

"The security of Asia is really very important, and the maritime piece of it is absolutely essential, so that's why we're there."

Greenert spoke later yesterday to members of the Naval Reserved Officers' Training Corps at the University of Pittsburgh, including Greenert's son, Brian, 22, a junior at Pitt.

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