Posted on 09/03/2004 11:45:47 PM PDT by kattracks
September 4, 2004 -- Al Qaeda plans to use fuel-laden trucks to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building and one of the tunnels to New Jersey between Sept. 24 and Oct. 10, an anonymous tipster recently warned federal authorities. Homeland security officials took the tip seriously enough to pass it on to the Police Department and other government agencies this week, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
"The tipster made similar calls earlier this year, warning of an August terror strike."
I remember those devastating strikes last month. Damn near brought our country to it's knees, didn't they?
Since the tipster also forecast disasters in August makes me wonder if he is making false reports to direct our attention away from what really could happen.
Don't discount it. Al Qaeda was originally wanted to attack us in July 2001, but for some reason they postponed it.
So just because they didn't manage to attack us in Aug or early September ( which were some time frames I also read), that doesn't mean they aren't planning to attack us later.
They still think they can duplicate their election success in Spain.
Maybe that's what Kerry is counting on, that Al Qaeda will scare us to vote for Kerry, as the Spaniards voted in the socialists, and dumped Aznar the guy who was really going after Al Qaeda.
I certainly hope they have read the American people wrong.
Or some moron,who gets his jollies making the cops go search for that wheich isn't there/won't happen.But better safe than sorry.
Could be a diversionary tactic, but who knows? It's the terrorists who don't have to get it right the first time.
The U.S. is going to be on high alert for the rest of our lives. Protecting our country against this new threat is costing us tens or maybe hundreds of billions of dollars per year -- money that previously was spent on other things that provided more benefit to society (of course, there's no benefit as great as national security). The economic drag on our country and the world by the Islamofascists really infuriates me. Some estimates of the 9/11 attack cost to our country are as high as one trillion dollars -- about one-seventh of an entire years output of goods and services. Living with this economic burden and constant fear is no way to live -- we need to crush this pestilence out of existence.
I wonder if they may switch tactics and try capturing a theater or school the way the Chechen bastards did in Russia. Since there's no national separatist movement by Moslems in the U.S., I don't think it's likely. Their preferred method in the U.S. is the large, dramatic strike to create another multi-trillion cost to our country. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be surprised to see them change tactics occasionally.
If he is counting on this he is a bigger fool than I take him for.
How exactly are you going to blow up a bridge with a fuel truck unless its loaded with Ammonium Nitrate or C4.
I actually think they have been waiting to see how the election polls are going. Now that the Republican Convention is over, and Bush has gotten a big bounce, I'd expect these pukes to do something to try to change that and affect the November election. Didn't the NYPD recently capture two terrorists who were planning on bombing the NY subway?
You can make all the jokes you want about this, but I firmly believe in the old addage: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Vigilance never hurt.
Trucks of any kind are not allowed on the Brooklyn Bridge, and that has been the case as long as I've lived nearby. I don't know whether they were *ever* allowed on the Bridge. Now maybe they are talking about some fuel truck *below* the Bridge blowing up, and causing collateral damage.
My question as well.
Remember earlier this year when a fuel truck caught on fire on an I-95 bridge in Connecticut? As I recall, the fuel so weakened the structure it had to be demolished. If memory serves me correctly. Also, the impact of the planes on the WTC buildings didn't harm them -- it was the burning fuel that weakened the steel members until they collapsed.
The bridge is a very old suspension design and has a very large number of steel cables supporting the roadway's weight. Fire/heat, causes steel to become very weak, very quickly.
A large fire that was enough to weaking many of the suspension guys from the roadway to the main suspension cables and to the bridge towers, would have a good chance of overstressing the other cables. The wooden walkway up by some of the main suspension cables if it caught fire could also weaken the main suspension cables. This scenario is definately a "could" so a collapse of a bridge span is a possibility not a will happen. Where I live a double tanker trailer of gasoline crashed and spilled at a concrete overpass. No one was killed, but the asphault road burned and continued to burn for hours. Remember that Al Quada has some good engineers that have been trained by the best money that Saudi Arabia can pass around to western universities.
The good news as was pointed out is that because it is a very old bridge, trucks aren't allowed on it. That would mean that a military/police checkpoint near either end of the bridge should be able to spot a problem before a fuel truck gets onto the bridge.
The treats to the tunnels are not new. On vetrans day, two months after 9/11 I was in New York City and to get to downtown NYC from the airport I took an airport shuttle. I came into the city through one of the underwater tunnels. There was a military checkpoint stopping all vehicles before they entered the tunnel. There were Miltary APC's and soldiers maning machine guns at the traffic stop. A soldier came on our buss and looked at everyone and looked for anything suspicious. Other soldiers used mirrors to examine under the bus. Still others had the driver open luggage compartments in the bus.
Thank you.
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