Coast Guard warns of terrorist threat in Puget Sound

KING-TV Seattle ^ | 6.9.02

[mhking]

Coast Guard warns of terrorist threat in Puget Sound
06/08/2002
The Associated Press

SEATTLE - The Coast Guard warned Saturday evening of a potential terrorist threat to “maritime interests” around Puget Sound.

“Based on information received across the U.S. Government, there is a credible threat to maritime interests from swimmers and divers,” Lt. Scott Casad of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Puget Sound said in a release.

He said the Coast Guard had told local port officials and maritime business owners to be on guard for suspicious activity.

No further details on possible targets or what triggered the warning were released. Casad did not immediately return a phone call Saturday evening.

The warning followed one from FBI national headquarters on May 23 that “various terrorist elements have sought to develop an offensive scuba diver capability.”

FBI agents have been questioning scuba diving instructors in Washington and around the country about any suspicious activity, including students interested in learning about underwater demolition.

Also, the Washington State Patrol last week was making random vehicle searches at public ferry terminals. The searches were done on the advice of the Washington State Ferries Security Committee, made up of staff from the Coast Guard, State Patrol and ferry system.

The Coast Guard’s Casad asked Saturday that any suspicious maritime activity be reported to the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Puget Sound, at (206) 217-6230 or 1 (800) 688-6664.

[Pining_4_TX]

Wow! Thanks for all the info! I guess that will teach me to listen to TV experts. That's why I need FR. :)

[aristeides]

Learning diving sufficiently well to do this sort of thing is not so difficult that the Tamil Tigers have not learned it well enough to attack shipping off Ceylon.

[aristeides]

Could those kids be stopped with suitable netting?

[aristeides]

I don't think this is false info. Hijacker Jarrah mailed a package to his Turkish girlfriend in Germany shortly before 9/11. It included documentation of his flying and diving lessons.

[Dakota gal in Seattle]

Remember..."Loose lips; shink ships."

[spetznaz]

Do you fellows know of any feasible plan that would work to prevent another terrorist attack? The reason i say feasible is because things like mass deportations, martial law (ha!) or tagging will never pass today! Thus it has to be something that is viable in todays environment, yet will have a degree of efficacy high enough to ensure that no attack goes through.

The reason i ask is because all of this 'color coding' stuff (which by the way is too darn complicated for most) and reporting every single 'warning' sounds to have several Achilles heels! For example the risk of over-saturation of the authorities with 'warnings.'

Anyway tell me if you have some effective appliable method (and i emphasize appliable).

[freeperfromnj]

Speaking of color coding, I was reading an update on this Puget Sound threat on Reuters a few minutes ago and for the first time I saw some clarification as to what actions the different colors actually require:

"A yellow alert is in the middle of the range indicating "significant" risk of attack. The next level, orange, could prompt calling in armed forces to back up law enforcement, and the highest alert of red would warn of a "severe risk" of terrorist attack."

[swarthyguy]

Ongoing vigilance. What else? I'm sure fbi are scrambling and surveilling potentials; and all the uniforms are on guard.

Blond islamoborgs with a stolen uniforms and ids would be the best profile for a sneak attack.

[Grampa Dave]

We all have to pay to travel on one of those ferries. We have no more right to travel on one of those ferries than to walk into a five star restaurant bare footed and bare chested and claim to have a right to eat when the maitre d tosses your butt out the door for not meeting the dress code.

[Kevin Curry]

There are times when i wonder if terrorist groups, some of the people we have in the detention centers, and even some pranksters out there are not churning out false info.

Osama bin Laden and his pals have demonstrated that they are intelligent and savvy enough to engage in psyops and disinformation campaigns against the American people. I believe they will try to strike when and where it is less, if not least, expected.

[spetznaz]

Actually it is interesting that you posted about the risk of 'blonde Islamaborgs!'

I have alwasy posted that the current trend of focussing on Arab looking males might actually be expossing the US to an attack. Most people do not know this, but most Muslims are NOT Arab!

And in certain areas eg Chechnya and the Balkans, you will find caucasian muslims who engage in openly terrorist acts. For example al Queda is said to have connections with the separatists in Chechnya!

What if one of these men came over here (or to Canada and then here)! Trust me they would pass through our checkpoints like a hot knife through butter since no one is looking for them!

Or maybe a Sudanese African Jehadi (UBL spent years in the Sudan, and he has linkages there).

Or maybe an Indonesian belonging to Abu Sayyef (which also has links to al Queda).

Just concentrating on Middle-Eastern Jehadis is foolish, especially when you consider that al Queda and other similar groups are basically guerilla terrorist groups, meaning they will try to take advantage of any perceived weaknesses. And it would be stupid for them to use Arab looking men on a plane hijacking since everyone and their granny seems to be wary of that!

I only pray that the FBI/CIA are ensuring that they are looking at the other more subtle alternatives (because it is IMO that a takeover of a civilian airliner by an Arab Jehadi is next to nil)! It would be weird for them to attack a target that is now relatively better protected!

[spetznaz]

Read post 111

[doug from upland]

IF WE CAN THINK IT, THEY CAN DO IT

[Libertina]

I am also a pretty regular customer down at the sunset grill, if you ever find yourself in that part of town.
LOL Yes, we're all gonna rush right over -1-2 hours - to see if you might happen to be there, and we're going to ask for "Ramius." Yep, that'll do it, they'll know who we're talking about no problem. :) Now about that lame bit... Just kidding Ramius, but you do make it difficult.

[swarthyguy]

I suspect that the airport brouhaha is locking the barn door after the fact. But can't take any chances. Yes, i think balkans - with say croatian or other euro passports or caucasian euro/american converts get around the whole ethnic/racial issue. Wonder if/how many have been caught and are being detained. There's been a fair amount of activity in Bosnia; busting 'charities' and transporting suspects to Egypt and probably elsewhere.

[spetznaz]

Honestly this is a dire situation we find ourselves in, especially when it seems the authorities are simply playing catchup to these folks!

And yes, i think the whole airport makeover came too late! And that the risk of non-Arab looking Jehadis is being ignored (which in my opinion would eb the most sagacious plan of action since few associate 'Islamic Terrorist' with a blue-eyed blond haired male)! Yet there are chechnyans out there associated with UBL!

And all these threats reported on TV are really not helping much because

a) They saturate the authorities with too many objectives (and make the deficient in meeting other obligations...eg i doubt the FBI will be able to get bank robbers and lower-level serial killers anymore since they are too busy making sure no terrorist is 'drilling tunnels' or 'building spaceships' or whatever 'threat' is in vogue).

b) Secondly there is a chance that continuous warnings that never occur will desentisize the American public. Think of the story of the boy who cried wolf, one to many times. I do not think in Israel they have 'color coding' from amber to magenta to sarunni! (And by the way, instead of all those colors why not a simpler numer system, from 1-5, with 5 being something big and 1 being something 'eheard on the grapevine').

Anyway I hope the Feds know what they are doing (although i feel sorry for the position they find themselves in .....they have to ensure nothing else happens, and then at the same time they are oversaturated with tasks! and now they have to join forces and intergrate with other groups that have disimilar organization plans than they do! Talk about a hard job!)

[Orion]

Unfortunately, that's just the price you have to pay. Unfortunately, privacy in public has to compromised (among other things) when we have jihadis infiltrated among us and apparently still trying as we speak. It's necessary. Absolutely. What choice is there.

Actually, it is not necessary. If our $2T/yr gov't would divert funds from the Urban Breeder Program and pay attention to who is crossing our borders, and paying attention to them once they are here, we would not have to have the WHP conducting dragnet searches of citizens, and the Feds running credit checks on every airline traveller.

Then again, if you want a 1984 style of police state to go with our IRS, this is the perfect excuse. Makes me sick that I voted for GWB and by extension Ashcroft, Maneta, Powell, and all the other morons running our new police state.

[Orion]

We all have to pay to travel on one of those ferries. We have no more right to travel on one of those ferries than to walk into a five star restaurant bare footed and bare chested and claim to have a right to eat when the maitre d tosses your butt out the door for not meeting the dress code.

Wrong!
The ferries are run by the WADOT, and is a state agency. You have every right to be on a ferry, provided you are in compliance with the fares, and carriage of HAZMAT, and the proper licensing of vehicles.

What you are talking about is Alaska Airlines, which is a private entity. They have the right to deny you passage.

[RaceBannon]

major ping!!

[Travis McGee]

Sure, and it is 100 times easier to attack a ship pierside or at anchor at night.