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| Terror Networks |
| Al-Qaida targeting cruise ships, aircraft carriers |
| 2003-12-28 |
EFL WND Article, use salt liberally Queen Mary 2 threatened, Osama’s terror armada said carrying mines U.S. intelligence officials say al-Qaida has turned its terror sights to a sea jihad, targeting Western luxury liners and aircraft carriers. The Brisbane Courier-Mail reports owners of the world’s largest cruise ship – the recently launched $1.3 billion Queen Mary 2 – confirmed terror threats hang over its maiden voyage slated for early next year. The paper reports U.S. intelligence officials also found evidence Osama bin Laden’s terror network planned to attack the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal as it passed through the Gibraltar Straits en route to the Iraq theater of war earlier this year. Al-Qaida has purchased at least 15 ships in the last two years, creating a veritable terror armada. G2 Bulletin’s sources said potential targets of the al-Qaida armada include civilian ports, oil rigs and cruise liners. Lloyds of London reportedly helped Britain’s MI6 and the U.S. CIA trace the sales of the "terror ships" made through a Greek shipping agent suspected of having direct contacts with bin Laden. The ships fly the flags of Yemen and Somalia – where they are registered – and are capable of carrying cargoes of lethal chemicals, a "dirty bomb" or even a nuclear weapon, according to G2B sources. The freighters left their home ports in the Horn of Africa in early September, some were believed destined for ports in Asia. Earlier this year, a chemical tanker, the Dewi Madrim, was hijacked by machinegun-bearing pirates in speedboats off the coast of Sumatra. These were terrorists learning how to drive a ship. They also kidnapped officers in an effort to acquire expertise on conducting a maritime attack. There is also evidence terrorists are learning about diving, with a view to attacking ships from below. The Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines kidnapped a maintenance engineer in a Sabah holiday resort in 2000. On his release in June this year, the engineer said his kidnappers knew he was a diving instructor – they wanted instruction. The owner of a diving school near Kuala Lumpur has recently reported a number of ethnic Malays wanting to learn about diving, but being strangely uninterested in learning about decompression. This resembles reports that Sept. 11 hijackers who attended U.S. flight schools were only interested in learning how to fly planes, not land. The Courier-Mail reports U.S. intelligence services believe scores of acoustic sea-mines, found to have disappeared from a naval base in North Korea by a U2 spy plane, could be aboard one or more of bin Laden’s estimated 28 "terror ships. According to the paper, the capture of al-Qaida’s chief of naval operations, Ahmad Belai al-Neshari, helped reveal the blueprint of the group’s maritime plots. Al-Neshari was found carrying a 180-page dossier that listed large cruise liners sailing from Western ports as "targets of opportunity." If a maritime terror attack comes, it won’t be the first. In October 2000, the USS Cole, a heavily armed ship protected with the latest radar defenses, was hit by an al-Qaida suicide crew. Seventeen American soldiers died. Two years later, following the attacks on the Twin Towers, a similar attack was carried out against a French supertanker off the coast of Yemen. It seems the early attempts to disable shipping by blasting in the side didn’t work well enough, so al-Qaida may be looking to run a large ship into a harbor, or near enough to a relatively undefended ship, such as a cruise liner or supercargo vessel. Getting near enough to harm a carrier will be subsequently more difficult, and more likely to result in a sunken ship. Personally, it’s almost as if Bin Laden is saying to himself, "I need to do something big, something important. I’ll try everything, hoping one of them works". |
| Posted by:Old Patriot |
| #4 I don't think you can take much comfort that an unarmed tramp freighter couldn't get close enough to a carrier to damage it. Al-Qaeda usually has the element of surprise. The NORK mines are a minor nuisance, but suppose one of these ships was turned into a giant AMPHO bomb. Or simply run at best speed into an offshore oil platform, or rams a laden tanker, or a loaded inter island ferry somewhere in the WestPac. The point here, lads, is that we don't have much maritime patrol available to prevent this sort of thing from happening. My estimate is that Al-Q will succeed on their first attempt at seaborne mischief, simply because, like the US before 9-11, there are no assets in place to stop them. Of course, we could go premptive and simply sink all 15 of these ships on the high seas, and I wouldn't be surprised if such action isn't being debated at 1600 PA-Ave now. My guess is that the CINC has set rules of engagement that will pretty much allow them to make the first move. We could be surveilling them from the air/satellites, but unless we seize the ships or sink them, they will get the first shot. |
| Posted by: Rivrdog 2003-12-29 1:45:56 AM |
| #3 Something's funny with the link--its not showing up on the front page (or its anchor tag isn't there). You can't click on the story title, you have to click on the little chain/link thing. |
| Posted by: RussSchultz 2003-12-28 10:34:06 PM |
| #2 Yeah, come after a carrier, boys... [evil grin] |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-12-28 8:47:06 PM |
| #1 'twould surely have to be a large bomb to do damage to QM2, and as for an aircraft carrier - in their wet dreams! |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2003-12-28 8:30:20 PM |