Mansoor Ijaz on Greta Van Suesteren - Al Qaeda Planning on Hijacking Super Tankers!

Fox News - On the Record with Greta Van Susteren ^ | 10 Oct 03 | Mansoor Ijaz

[John Beresford Tipton]

The article was in Saturday's Economist. I do not have the url, but did manage to retrieve it from my cache:

Title:
Are terrorists now aiming to block shipping lanes and disrupt the flow of oil and other goods ?


ON MARCH 26th, the Dewi Madrim, a chemical tanker off the coast of Sumatra, was boarded by ten pirates from a speedboat. They were armed with machine guns and machetes and carried VHF radios. They disabled the ship's radio, took the helm and steered the vessel, altering speed, for about an hour. Then they left, with some cash and the captain and first officer, who are still missing.

So what? South-East Asia is the home of piracy. There was an alarming 37% increase in incidents during the first half of this year. Raiders board ships, steal cash and kidnap crew members, then hold them for ransom. Some criminals even steal a ship and sell its cargo?then repaint it, equip it with false documents and put it to work. The region, with its lax security and poor maritime supervision, is famous for such ?ghost ships?.

But according to a new study* by Aegis Defence Services, a London defence and security consultancy, these attacks represent something altogether more sinister. The temporary hijacking of the Dewi Madrim was by terrorists learning to drive a ship, and the kidnapping (without any attempt to ransom the officers) was aimed at acquiring expertise to help the terrorists mount a maritime attack. In other words, attacks like that on the Dewi Madrim are the equivalent of the al-Qaeda hijackers who perpetrated the September 11th attacks going to flying school in Florida.

Coupled with this, there is evidence that terrorists are learning about diving, with a view to attacking ships from below. The Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines kidnapped a maintenance engineer in a Sabah holiday resort in 2000. On his release in June this year, the engineer said his kidnappers knew he was a diving instructor; they wanted instruction. The owner of a diving school near Kuala Lumpur has recently reported a number of ethnic Malays wanting to learn about diving, but being strangely uninterested in learning about decompression.

Aegis's intelligence has turned up links between big criminal gangs in the area and terrorists, driven by the need for the latter to finance their operations. There have been ten cases of pirates stealing tugs for no apparent reason; the worry is that they are for use to tow a hijacked tanker into a busy international port, such as Singapore.

On September 16th 2001, America closed the port of Boston, fearing that terrorists would attack the gas terminal in the port. To this day, gas tankers bound for Boston have to be escorted by coastguards from 200 miles away from the port.

An incident on October 18th 2001 increased anxieties about terrorists using shipping, especially container ships, to smuggle people and explosives around the world. Authorities in the southern Italian port of Gioia Tauro found a stowaway in a well-appointed container, fitted out with a bed, toilet, heater and water. He also had a laptop computer, mobile and satellite phones, and airport security passes and a mechanic's certificate for JFK, Newark, Los Angeles International and Chicago O'Hare airports. Fears grew further after a torpedo attack by terrorists on a French tanker, the MV Limburg, in Yemen in October 2002.

The likeliest terrorist target is a tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas (easier to explode than natural gas), reckons Aegis's Tim Spicer, formerly a British soldier and head of Sandline, a ?private military company? (a euphemism for a supplier of mercenaries) that achieved notoriety for its work for the British government in Sierra Leone. He fears that hijacked gas and oil tankers could be used to block the Malacca Strait, or the Panama or Suez Canals. That could wreak economic havoc. The UN estimates that ships carry 80% of the world's traded cargo?5.8 billion tonnes in 2001.

Not shipshape
An OECD report? on maritime security, published this summer, points out that the shipping industry is having to invest $1.3 billion this year on improved security and will face running costs of $730m a year to maintain better security systems. There are 46,000 merchant ships and 4,000 ports around the world and, as Aegis points out, it will take some considerable time to bring them up to scratch.

Other reforms are also proceeding too slowly. On October 1st, America's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection was supposed to introduce new rules requiring shipping lines to advise the agency by computer or by fax about the contents of incoming cargo vessels. It now says it has delayed publishing its requirements until later this month?although it is not entirely clear why. The idea behind the new rules is to improve the quality of screening?but the sheer volume makes comprehensive screening impossible. With 232m container movements through the world's ports each year, it is now practical to look inside only about 2% of them.

America, at least, has made more progress in requiring foreign ports to allow American officials to check cargo before it sets sail for America. The world's biggest ports quickly co-operated, because they feared that, if they did not, they might have been frozen out of trade with America.

Then there is the thorny problem of screening crew members. Half of the world's merchant fleet, with 1.2m seafarers on board, sails under a flag of convenience. Paperwork and background checks are often minimal. After the September 11th attacks, the International Labour Organisation introduced identity cards for seafarers?but nobody has much faith that this has solved the problem.

[section9]

I strongly suspect that the various U.S. Navy sub squadrons have been planning for this kind of thing for some time.

If we have to, we'll have no problem sending one of these ships to the bottom. Remember, ships is slow.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[John H K]

Eh, as someone who recreationally fishes a lot, and also is concerned about the environment, it would bother me a great deal, and hurt charter captains, etc., some commerical fishermen if there was a big oil spill in Delaware Bay or something, but it would hardly be a crippling economic blow or even a noticeable economic blow to the economy.

It would make the evirowhackos flip out though. I think AQ, if they have any ability to do anything, have bigger fish to fry than making envirowhackos tear up at oil-soaked seagull.


This sort of thing has, of course, declined over the past few months but it always stuck me as odd how people seemed to almost get EXCITED attempting to scare the crap out of each other with lurid theories of how to mount a terror attack, almost like telling ghost stories around a campfire and trying to one-up each other.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Well, who's to say they'd use the LNG or oil for their purpose? I had family in Nova Scotia when the Mont Blanc, an Ammo ship, exploded in Halifax - killed by the resultant "tidal wave" that wiped out their village...

A lot of damage could be done with a ship - I wouldn't dismiss this casually, but then I wouldn't get paranoid either ;0)

[nutmeg]

Thank you for posting this, AB. We always drop what we're doing here - and listen - whenever Mansoor Ijaz makes an appearance on Fox News.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Thanks for the link. I like Mansoor. I am even more impressed with him now.

Mansoor Ijaz is founder and chairman of The Crescent Partnerships, a family of New York investment partnerships between Ijaz, Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson (USAF Ret), former director of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, and Turkey's Global Group, a major Abu Dhabi investment group and the heir of a prominent European shipping family. Former CIA Director, Amb. James Woolsey, serves as vice chairman of Crescent's Board of Governors.

Let's just say I figured he had connections like this ;-)

[nutmeg]

FoxFan ping!

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[PureSolace]

Funny you mention this... My mom actually emailed me about this earlier. Here, I'll post the email for your enjoyment. I don't think she'll mind... :)

Want something to do some research on -

Fox and Friends had Monsoor Ijaz on this morning [Mansoor Ijaz is a FOX News Channel foreign affairs and terrorism analyst. He joined FOX in December 2001 and contributes to FNC’s prime time and weekend news analysis programs on matters related to terrorism, foreign policy and national security.

He was talking about how sea piracy is on the rise and changing. He said before the pirates would board cargo ships and steal cargo, then leave.

Lately, they have been boarding Ships that carry oil, chemicals, etc. In some cases they hold the captain hostage and force him to show them how to steer the ship (sound familiar). He said a lot of other stuff, which i can't remember right now.

He also said that deep sea diver instructors have been kidnapped (mainly in the tourist areas in southeast Asia). One such instructor who excaped said they wanted him to show them how to go DOWN but not UP (as in decompression stuff) (SOUND FAMILIAR).

He also said we really needed to focus on the Suez Canal and the Straits of Hurmuz (sp?). These are the most vulnerable. He said if an oil tanker or some other suicide bombing would take place in these two narrow bodies of water the economy of the world would be very much effected for 2 years or longer.

I forgot a lot of what he said , but he urged everyone to e-mail their congressmen and make sure they are aware of the growing danger.

I did a google search under "sea piracy" and found a web site. The google heading said "Weekly Piracy Report" Here's a list of the articles that caught my eye. I'm sure there's a lot more out there.

http://www.iccwbo.org/ccs/imb_piracy/weekly_piracy_report.asp

http://www.iccwbo.org/ccs/news_archives/2003/piracy_ms.asp

http://www.iccwbo.org/ccs/news_archives/2003/piracy_report_second_quarter.asp

http://www.iccwbo.org/home/news_archives/2003/stories/limburg.asp

http://www.iccwbo.org/home/news_archives/2003/stories/raes.asp

If you find out anything (maybe from your freerepublic friends, let me know.) I thought it was interesting and I had not heard anything like it on Fox or any other news show. Have you?

---

Anyways, that was an email I got this morning from my mom and I thought I'd pass it along to you guys... My favorite part was "If you find out anything (maybe from your freerepublic friends, let me know.)" :) Anywho, You heard my mom! go out there and find those terrorists! :) Love you all. Cyaz.

[Adrastus]

Take the bomb used against the Marine barracks in Beruit, multiply it by 1000 or so and that'll give you an idea of how effective it could be. The gas is dispersed by using a very fast large charge, then the gas is ignited with a slow charge. In Beruit they used 4 acytelene tanks a few kilos of c4 and an igniter. Nasty business.

Personally, I wouldn't want to be around when it goes off. Definitly make your ears ring.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Thanks.

[ConservativeMan55]

Interesting.

[Orangedog]

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.

If they were successful in pulling off a coordinated hijacking of two or three super tankers and just blew them up and sank them in the Indian Ocean there would be another issue...insurance policies. I could see Lloyds of London and the other carriers either dropping coverage for super tankers or raising the premiums by a factor of 10. The time it would take to get the insurance and added security issues resolved would cause major disruptions in global oil distribution.

[John H K]

The complete explosion of the largest LNG tanker in the world wouldn't even APPROACH the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. There's no conceivable way you could kill MILLIONS with one. As I mentioned, the whole exploding LNG thing is massively overhyped.

And they're actually a lot harder to blow up than people think; simply leaking and burning is far more likely.

And another thing people seem to be unaware of is that there's basically "air traffic control" for all large vessels such as tankers, and also all large ships entering US waters have Americans guiding them into port.

Every ship entering a port, while it is WELL offshore, takes on a "harbor pilot" from a small boat; for example, a ship going to Baltimore will take on a pilot at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, a ship going to Philadelphia takes one on in the ocean off of Delaware. This is done because the local pilots know the local currents and sandbars.

Each location the pilots leave from has a radar. All large ships are tracked.

And tankers don't move any faster than about 15 miles an hour at best and usually a lot slower while they're entering a bay or estuary.

This is REALLY slow.

Any tanker takeover would be known and fairly obvious, either from refusing a pilot or losing contact with the pilot, or maneuvering strangely.

And there would be hours and hours and hours to react to such a takeover.

And the final thing is that in general, though it varies from city to city, our major cities don't really have working cargo terminals that are all that near the downtown areas of the cities anymore.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[swheats]

Thanks for posting this.

Lets hope all countries' military has begun piloting the ships to catch those who would try and hijack or cause harm.

[U S Army EOD]

Sea Otters and other marine life beware!!!!!!!

[rmlew]

Al Qaeda Planning on Hijacking Super Tankers!
Islamists using Arab oil as weapon platform against the US. How original.

[sheik yerbouty]

He is a Pakistani American who blew the whistle on the jihadists during the regime of Beelzebubba.

[mathluv]

He was on fox and Friends, saying much the same thing, in the last 2 days.