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Ferries targets for terrorism? Washington State Ferries

Lawmakers told of numerous ‘suspicious incidents’

LES BLUMENTHAL; The News Tribune
Published: September 10th, 2006 01:00 AM

WASHINGTON – It could be a bomb stuffed in a car or a truck or strapped around the waist of a suicide bomber.
It could be an explosives-filled boat, like the one that attacked the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole in Yemen six years ago. It could be a small plane packed with explosives diving out of the sky.

Or terrorists might hijack one of Washington state’s jumbo ferries with 2,500 people on board and aim it at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, which overhauls nuclear aircraft carriers and Trident nuclear submarines.

Although security has improved dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the ferries plying the waters of Puget Sound remain vulnerable, and intelligence suggests that terrorists are conducting surveillance and the ferries could be a target, officials say.

FBI and homeland security officials said no terrorist plots have been uncovered, but in the three years after 9/11 the FBI reviewed 157 “suspicious incidents” involving the Washington state ferry system, the nation’s largest.

Of those, seven were classified as having an “extremely” high likelihood of being pre-operational planning, 11 were classified as a “high” likelihood and 49 as “medium,” according to briefing documents homeland security officials provided in late August to members of the House Homeland Security Committee.

“Intelligence suggests that WSF (Washington State Ferries) is being monitored and may be a potential terrorist target,” according to the documents, which were marked as sensitive but not classified. “Attacks on mass transit systems are increasingly terrorists’ choice.”....

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/6087028p-5336674c.html