The International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code requires both ports and individual port facilities to organize a large-scale exercise once a year. This took place on Wednesday, December 13, for the Moerdijk port and industrial estate and Dintelmond industrial estate. We practiced various parts of our port safety plan and the individual port facilities also participated based on: their own security plans.
The exercise started with a message from the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) that information was available indicating an increased terrorist threat. More specifically, there are indications that - within the port area of Moerdijk - people have entered some unknown shipping lines with the aim of causing damage or disruptions to the critical infrastructure. There was no actual disruption at that time, but the chance of this would be very likely.
About one hour later, three people showed up at one of the port facilities, who then moved by boat to another port facility. All port facilities in the port area were asked to scale up to Security Level 2 and take the associated measures. Ultimately, the persons were arrested by the security organization of the port facility in collaboration with the police and the Royal Military Police. The increased terrorist threat disappeared and the port facilities were able to scale down to Security Level 1 (standard) again.
The exercise was carried out at all levels and was satisfactory. This will now be evaluated, after which the information will be fed back to the individual port facilities.
Coincidentally, one day before the annual exercise (12-12-2023), the 'Dutch Terrorism Threat Assessment' was published, in which the NCTV has decided to increase the threat level in the Netherlands from 3 (significant) to 4 (substantial). This made the exercise all the more relevant. According to the NCTV, there is a real chance that an attack will take place in the Netherlands. The violent conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Koran violations in various European countries and calls for attacks from terrorist organizations have increased the threat from jihadism. Other sources of threat include right-wing terrorism, online radicalization and anti-institutional extremism.