May 2, 2004 -- SOMEONE made a 44-foot gasoline tanker disappear from a South Jersey parking lot earlier this month. And it wasn't magician David Copperfield.
According to the FBI and a New Jersey state coun- terterrorism team, the stolen vehicle (New Jersey license plates: T852SC) can hold 9,200 gallons of fuel. It was empty when it vanished from the TK Transport Terminal in Pennsauken, N.J., around April 8. The state counterterrorism office informed me this week that they have "nothing new to report" on the case.
Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we could have shrugged off this unsolved mystery as an item for "News of the Weird." Maybe it's just a, um, "garden-variety" fuel truck theft. But given the alarming signs of al Qaeda plans to kill Americans using gas tankers, we simply cannot take the terrorism implications of such a bizarre disappearance for granted. Let's connect the dots.
Tanker trucks are common tools of the global terrorist trade:
* In 1996, a tanker truck loaded with at least 5,000 pounds of plastic explosives barreled through the Khobar Towers residential complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen.
* In April 2002, a gas tanker truck crashed into a Tunisian synagogue, killing 21 people.
* In May 2002, a remote-controlled bomb was used to blow up a fuel tanker at Israel's largest fuel depot in Tel Aviv.
* Last May, chemical and fuel-laden trucks were used in three simultaneous terrorist attacks on housing complexes in Saudi Arabia; the blasts killed 35 people, including eight Americans.
* Last summer, the Philippines arrested its most wanted Islamic terrorist, Saifullah (Muklis) Yunos, who confessed to plotting an extensive bombing campaign that included filling an empty gas tanker with ammonium nitrate and sawdust and detonating it in front of the presidential residence in Manila.
We know that al Qaeda has had its eye on tanker trucks here. Captured al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told American investigators last spring that the terrorist group had planned to use trucks to attack gas stations in New York City. (Mohammed is also suspected of having ordered the Tunisia gas tanker bombing via satellite phone.)
Mohammed reportedly told intelligence officials that confessed al Qaeda operative Majid Khan had come up with the idea of attacking gas stations. Khan, reportedly captured in Pakistan, is a former Baltimore resident with many family members still in the Baltimore area who own, yes, gas stations.
According to Newsweek, Khan also reportedly spoke with Mohammed about a plan to use a Karachi-based import-export business to smuggle explosives into the U.S. Last fall, Kashmiri-born truck driver Iyman Faris - a relative of Khan's - was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he confessed to plotting with al Qaeda to destroy U.S. bridges and derail trains.
One missing fuel truck cannot be viewed in isolation:
* At about the same time the tanker in New Jersey went missing, Australia reported the disappearance of 47 bags of fertilizer containing more than 3.5 tons of ammonium nitrate (a favorite al Qaeda bomb ingredient) from its Defence Department stockpiles.
* And Thailand went on high alert after 1.3 tons of ammonium nitrate was stolen from a quarry in an area dominated by radical Islamists.
* In February 2002, the North Carolina Highway Patrol and FBI issued a four-state alert for two "Middle Eastern-looking men" after a fuel tanker driver reported that a Dodge Neon tried to force him off the road in Georgia. The Neon bore New Jersey plates; the suspects were not found.
To his credit, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called repeatedly for increased tanker security. He has proposed a tracking system for large trucks carrying hazardous material cargos. This is a reasonable regulatory burden in a post-9/11 world. After all, a similar vehicle-tracking mandate for U.S. carriers authorized to transport ammunition for the Defense Department has been in place since 1993. The Energy Department also requires a centralized vehicle-tracking system for nuclear and other sensitive shipments.
FBI spokeswoman Linda Vizi insists: "We have no intelligence that there is any imminent threat here." Maybe the missing tanker will turn up abandoned on the side of the N.J. Turnpike. But it won't be the end of the story.
The signs and signals of a looming tanker-bombing attack remain as plain as day. And if we have learned anything from 9/11, it is that al Qaeda terrorists are patient, stubborn plotters who try, try again.
bump!
A cause for concern, surely.