I am sure we will get more of these reports leaking out from the Bin Laden raid material. This is of particular interest, because this supports the jihadist privateer concept I talked about awhile back. If economic attacks are on their mind, then using pirates to seize these vessels and then sink or crash them into a port is definitely something they could benefit from. Or just sinking a vessel in a key water way like the Straits of Hormuz. There are a number of things AQ could do with a vessel like an oil tanker, and the imagination is the only limitation.
This article also mentioned AQ’s prior attempted attacks on oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. Attacks on oil, be it facilities or tankers, is a symbolic attack as well as an economic attack. For this reason, it makes perfect sense that countries like the UAE or Saudi Arabia would invest their oil money into measures that would protect their golden goose.
Finally, this only emphasizes to those security contractors out there that are protecting these vessels, that you have a very important and dangerous job. You are floating on a ‘gold goose’, and it certainly is an attractive target to pirates and terrorists alike. –Matt
Al Qaeda Considered Targeting Oil Tankers
MAY 21, 2011
By KEITH JOHNSON
Intelligence seized from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout suggested that al Qaeda is interested in attacking oil tankers, Homeland Security officials said, a discovery that has prompted the agency to warn industry officials and local law enforcement.
The warning comes on the heels of indications of continued interest by al Qaeda in attacking other favorite targets, including planes and trains.
“In 2010, there was continuing interest by members of al Qaeda in targeting oil tankers and commercial infrastructure at sea,” Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said in a statement Friday. He added that “we are not aware of indications of any specific or imminent terrorist attack plotting against the oil and natural-gas sector overseas or in the United States,” and said “it is unclear if any further planning has been conducted since mid-last year.”
Last summer, a Japanese oil tanker was attacked while passing through the Strait of Hormuz, though it suffered only minor damage. Investigators concluded that was a terrorist attack.
The materials gathered by U.S. Navy SEALs in the raid earlier this month in Abbottabad, Pakistan—including Osama bin Laden’s personal journal—sketched a broad picture of targets the terror group would like to attack, but provided little detail about actual plans to carry out such missions, officials said. The targets revealed so far, including commercial aviation and railroads, have long been in al Qaeda’s playbook.
Oil tankers and oil-industry infrastructure also have been a preferred target for al Qaeda and associated groups, in keeping with the militants’ stated goal of causing economic disruption to the West and to Arab regimes they consider hostile. In 2002, militants used a small skiff packed with explosives to blow a hole in the side of a French-owned oil tanker off the coast of Yemen in 2002.
In 2006, al Qaeda tried and failed to blow up a massive oil-processing facility in Saudi Arabia. Four years later, Saudi officials captured more than 100 suspected al Qaeda operatives plotting to attack oil installations. This year, the Saudis began deployment of what will be a 35,000-strong security force to protect the country’s oil infrastructure.
In Iraq, Islamist militants associated with al Qaeda have repeatedly attacked a key oil pipeline running from the sprawling oilfields in the north of the country toward Turkey, disrupting Iraq’s efforts to ramp up oil production and exports.
In 2002, al Qaeda considered launching a major attack inside the U.S. by blowing up natural-gas pipelines inside apartment buildings, according to leaked assessments of detainees at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Oil tankers and other big ships have another security worry: Piracy in the Indian Ocean. In late 2008, pirates hijacked a Saudi oil tanker loaded with two million barrels of crude, and held it for two months until a multi-million dollar ransom was paid.
Story here.