Posted on 10/10/2003 8:05:38 PM PDT by Alas Babylon!
Mansoor Ijaz was on Greta's show, he gave a detailed analysis about some very disturbing accounts on the various sea lanes. He mentioned that the Straits of Mollucca, between Singapore, Indonesia, and Maylasia have always been a hotbed of piracy, but recent events have raised alarms. It seems like many ships have been hijacked in the last few months by Islamic radicals but rather than stealing the cargo or kidnapping the crews these terrorists have just wanted to know how to steer the big ships! He compared this to the 9/11 terrorists going to the various flight schools only wanting to know how to fly big jets--not wanting to land them.
Further, he mentioned that in this same area about 12 (?) tug boats have been pirated and have now dissappeared. He is concerned that they could be used to haul or pull a larger ship into position to cause some atrocity in one of our harbors. He also mentioned that several diving experts have been contacted to teach Islamicists on how to swim unnoticed underwater. Demolition charges planned?
He discussed with Greta his thoughts on all this. Is Al Qaeda planning another 9/11, but this time using large ships or super tankers to blow up an American city? He also stated that ships disabled or destroyed in certain waters could destroy the economies of many nations, such as the straits between the Agean and Black seas in Turkey, the Straits of Hourmuz in the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Gibraltar, etc, etc.
A super-tanker would not do damage to a city. Now, a city's BRIDGE (like SF's Golden Gate, or NYC's Verrizano) packed solid with rush-hour traffic, is another story.
In order to work, the hijackers would need to be able to conceal the fact that the tanker was hijacked until just before they hit the target (as they mostly succeeded in doing on 9/11)
Who said they will attack in the U.S.? Remember the USS Cole? You under-estimate the enemy at your own peril.
The Texas City explosion of 1947
During the morning of April 16, 1947 a seemingly fine rain of oily mist fell upon Galveston, Texas while in Houston a rumbling reminiscent of a small earthquake was felt. What the inhabitants of these cities didn’t know at the time was that a giant explosion and fire had ripped though the booming town of Texas City.
Anchored in the harbor of Texas City that morning was a cargo ship named the “Grand Camp.” In its holds was tons of an ammonium nitrate fertilizer that was to be shipped to Europe. There has been much speculation over the years as to what caused the initial fire upon the Grand Camp but fifty-three years later there has been no definitive answer.
Texas City in 1947 was a booming town whose many residents worked in the nearby refineries and chemical plants. It also was a place with a small town air in which everyone was a friend with everyone else and each knew the business of the other. On April 16th word spread through out the community about the fire upon the Grand Camp and the “pretty orange color that was coming from the black smoke.” As with any accident or fire a crowd of onlookers appeared to watch the Texas City firefighters in action. As word of the fire traveled, the crowd of onlookers grew in number.
The Grand Camp’s crew and possibly the harbor crews knew that the ship was carrying the highly explosive ammonium nitrate but the crowds didn’t or if they did, they were not aware of its highly volatile condition. Of course the standard procedure for dealing with a dangerously burning ship was to tow it by tug as far from the harbor as possible. For some reason this didn’t happen and at 9:00a.m. “The Texas City Disaster” as it will forever be remembered happened.
At 9:00 there was an explosion and a giant column of black smoke rose approximately 2,000 feet into the air. A mere ten to fifteen seconds later a second explosion rocked the ship, which created a violent shockwave, and fire quickly engulfed the Monsanto Chemical Plant in flames due to broken gas lines and containers. Within these few seconds almost the entire Texas City Fire Department was killed as well as the hoards of civilians and children still standing near the docks watching the excitement.
The industrial complexes around the Texas City area were at that time (and still are) connected by pipelines that caused the fires and explosions at the Monsanto plant to quickly spread to the surrounding plants. As at Monsanto entire buildings collapsed trapping workers within the flaming inferno.
Although the shockwave caused a displacement of the water in the harbor and created a small tidal wave that washed inland over one hundred and fifty feet, it did little to save the people from the fires.
News of the explosion quickly spread to Galveston, Houston, Conroe, La Port and Pasadena. Firefighters and police officers from all these towns went to aid in the work at Texas City and by dusk the town was full of rescue workers. Ambulances from all over the area were making repeated trips to John Sealy in Galveston as well as Ben Taub and other hospitals in Houston.
By night though new fears arose as another ship, the “High Flyer” had been burning all day since the original explosion and word was reaching the workers and towns people that she was carrying sulfur and a cargo hold full of ammonium nitrate. All during the day tugs had tried in vain to move her, all to no avail.
The fear of another explosion didn’t keep the rescue workers from removing the injured from the harbor and Montesano areas until 1:00 a.m. when all workers were ordered away. At 1:10 a.m. the High Flyer exploded with greater force than any by the Grand Camp.
As the High Flyer exploded she took another ship, the “Wilson B. Keene,” with her. A concrete warehouse and a grain elevator went up in even more fires and explosions.
On April 16, 1947 the town of Texas City had 16,000 registered inhabitants but by the time the last body was found a month later, six hundred were known dead. The exact number will never be known as many of the victims were incinerated in the blast and there were no remains to be found.
Pakistani.
Nice job. I'll use it.
To use as a trojan horse to deliver high-speed attack craft to an American harbor?
I am sitting on the 20th floor of the San Diego Marriott right now (missing one of my 7 San Diego days/year in New Hampshire).
Across from my window, I can see a large CVN moored at a pier.
Yesterday, I took the harbor cruise, and got up close and personal with 20+ warships, including 3 helicopter assault carriers tied up side-by-side.
All I can think about, after seeing all this, is, "How is AQ going to attack those ships"?
I'm sure the tankers, if they exist, are going to deliver attackers, not blow up themselves.
The Coast Guard has a very difficult job.
No crap, sherlock. his articles in the guardian by those fearless intrepid journalist are ignored on FX News.
Now he recycles old debka stuff, a recent Economist article stuff and a bunch of reports published in commercial shipping journals for the last year.
Does anyone know he was one of the investors in the factory Clinton bombed? That jihadi owner was his partner. That's why he's pissed at the Clintons. Ignore his working for them for 8 years of the Clinton fiasco.
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