This alert summarizes several suspicious maritime incidents have occurred recently. Although not directly related, the incidents underscore the importance of continued tight security and patrols around ports and shipping facilities.
Earlier alerts were made public that terrorist may concentrate on maritime cargo and shipping facilities to disrupt commercial traffic and commerce in the U.S. Law enforcement agencies have increased security around maritime ports and on the water to minimize this threat. After 9/11 the Coast Guard dramatically increased its security on all maritime traffic, instituted the Sea Marshals program and created small maritime SWAT-like units, called MSSTs, or Maritime Safety and Security Teams, at each large U.S. commercial port.
The following incidents all took place within the last week.
- A diver was found dead, floating in the Hudson River, near the Indian Point nuclear power plant Feb. 24. Indian Point is 24 miles north of Manhattan.
- A diver was found dead near John U. Lloyd State Park, Dania Beach, Fla.
- A diver, who was not located, was seen by a Coast Guard crewman near a 47-foot patrol boat moored at the Sand Island Coast Guard base in Honolulu Harbor on Sunday.
- A ferry carrying 899 people caught fire last week after an explosion in the Philippines. Flames raced through the ‘Superferry 14' shortly after it left Manila. One person died and 12 were injured and 134 people remain missing. Witnesses reported a powerful explosion that sparked an inferno on the ferry. A man -- listed by the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf as one of its suicide bombers -- was aboard the ferry.
Philippine Coast Guard Vice Adm. Arturo Gosingan said there was no indication so far that a bomb caused the blaze. Police dogs checked the ferry before it departed.
Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaida-linked group, claimed responsibility for the incident and identified the “suicide bomber” as Arnulfo Alvarado, 33, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper reported. However, the government has dismissed the Abu Sayyaf’s claim of responsibility as propaganda.
In addition:
The Bow Mariner, a tanker from Singapore exploded and sank Saturday, 2/27 50 miles off the coast of Virginia while carrying about 3.5 million gallons of ethanol. Three crewmen were killed in the blast and 18 others have not been found. Six people survived and have been released from hospitals. Investigators are trying to determine how the horrific blast occurred, since the vessel’s tanks are below deck and supposed to be fireproof.
There is no information that connects any of these incidents or which points to terrorism as the cause. But the incidents underscore the warnings in a May 2002 FBI bulletin sent to federal and local law enforcement agencies asking them to be alert to the fact that scuba divers may be used to terrorist purposes:
In the bulletin sent to state and local law enforcement agencies, the FBI warned that “various terrorist elements have sought to develop an offensive scuba diver capability.” A U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the warning came from interviews with detainees and documents recovered in terrorism investigations. The scuba warning, which the FBI emphasized was based on uncorroborated and unsubstantiated information, cautioned that while “there is no evidence of operational planning to utilize scuba divers to carry out attacks within the United States, there is a body of information showing the desire to obtain such a capability.”
