Share this story!            

‘Al Qaeda could stage seaborne attack within 12 months’

LONDON: Al Qaeda could stage a seaborne attack within the next 12 months, in a tactical strategy to drive maritime shipping costs and travel times to record highs, a British private defence firm said on Friday.

Aegis Defence Systems intelligence director Dominic Armstrong said that a waterborne attack would be “spectacular – a big bang to get people’s attention” in an ideal Qaeda plot. Aegis said there was a greater likelihood of such a strategy now because Al Qaeda had promoted a maritime attack specialist as the head of its operations in Saudi Arabia.

It said that Saud bin Hamud al-Otaibi was thought to be behind the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port city of Aden that killed 17 US sailors.

Armstrong said that the Iraq conflict was training Islamic militants from various countries in warfare, who would return to their home countries trained and battle-hardened. “Iraq is the equivalent for a new generation - an opportunity for the ambitious jihadist,” he said.

Aegis Defence System, founded in 2003 by former SAS officer Tim Spicer, won a $293 million US defence contract to coordinate private security contractors in Iraq as well as to provide its own security units. afp

Home | National

Share this story!