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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Al Queda targeting Cruise Ships, Aircraft Carriers |
| 2005-11-05 |
| The Brisbane Courier-Mail reports owners of the world's largest cruise ship – the recently launched $1.3 billion Queen Mary 2 – confirmed terror threats hang over its maiden voyage slated for early next year. The paper reports U.S. intelligence officials also found evidence Osama bin Laden's terror network planned to attack the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal as it passed through the Gibraltar Straits en route to the Iraq theater of war earlier this year. WorldNetDaily exclusively reported Sept. 29, based on intelligence obtained by Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, that al-Qaida has purchased at least 15 ships in the last two years, creating a veritable terror armada. G2 Bulletin's sources said potential targets of the al-Qaida armada include civilian ports, oil rigs and cruise liners. Lloyds of London reportedly helped Britain's MI6 and the U.S. CIA trace the sales of the "terror ships" made through a Greek shipping agent suspected of having direct contacts with bin Laden. The ships fly the flags of Yemen and Somalia – where they are registered – and are capable of carrying cargoes of lethal chemicals, a "dirty bomb" or even a nuclear weapon, according to G2B sources. The freighters left their home ports in the Horn of Africa in early September, some were believed destined for ports in Asia. WorldNetDaily reported Oct. 13 on growing warnings around the world that the next dramatic terror attack is more likely to come at sea than in the air. Earlier this year, a chemical tanker, the Dewi Madrim, was hijacked by machinegun-bearing pirates in speedboats off the coast of Sumatra. But these weren't ordinary pirates looking for booty. These were terrorists learning how to drive a ship. They also kidnapped officers in an effort to acquire expertise on conducting a maritime attack. There is also evidence 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. This resembles reports that Sept. 11 hijackers who attended U.S. flight schools were only interested in learning how to fly planes, not land. The Courier-Mail reports U.S. intelligence services believe scores of acoustic sea-mines, found to have disappeared from a naval base in North Korea by a U2 spy plane, could be aboard bin Laden's "terror ships," the number of which it puts at 28. According to the paper, the capture of al-Qaida's chief of naval operations, Ahmad Belai al-Neshari, helped reveal the blueprint of the group's maritime plots. Al-Neshari was found carrying a 180-page dossier that listed large cruise liners sailing from Western ports as "targets of opportunity." |
| Posted by:Jackal |