Excerpt.....
This is what al-Qaeda, with its revamped leadership structure, is counting on. While the US Homeland Security Department argues about how many screening machines to install at airports, terrorists are planning how to convert supertankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas or other chemicals into floating bombs - or perhaps even dirty bombs with help from a rogue nation with nuclear knowhow.
Data compiled by Aegis Defence Services, a UK security consultancy, provides worrying evidence of this. In March, for example, pirates boarded a chemical tanker, the Dewi Madrim, near Sabah in the south Pacific for several hours. Their intention was not to ransom the crew or offload its cargo, as south-east Asia's pirates usually do, but simply to learn how to steer it at varying speeds. And in the past few months, 10 tugboats have been reported missing, each of which could be used for close-in manoeuvring of a disabled tanker, hijacked just before entering a big port (at Singapore, say) and just before being set ablaze.
Other dangers to maritime interests are also becoming apparent. In June, for example, an offshore maintenance engineer with deep-sea diving skills, who had been kidnapped in 2000, was released by Abu Sayyaf. He reported that his captors had wanted to learn how to dive, but were not interested in learning how to resurface.
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/636 "Other dangers to maritime interests are also becoming apparent. In June, for example, an offshore maintenance engineer with deep-sea diving skills, who had been kidnapped in 2000, was released by Abu Sayyaf. He reported that his captors had wanted to learn how to dive, but were not interested in learning how to resurface."
I imagine the movement of B-52's and other aircraft back to Guam is related to some of this sort of activity. Still, it would probably take 2 - 3 hours for Guam based attack aircraft to reach the Singapore area. Of course, there are always things happening that aren't publicized and thank God and GWB for that. A/C from Diego Garcia could probably reach Singapore more quickly and they are already in place.