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Al Qaeda Maritime Threat

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Akiva Lorenz in his essay “Al Qaeda's Maritime Threat” touches on some of the vulnerabilities of various transportation systems to Al Qaeda's asymmetric warfare, and then he moves to his main topic- Maritime Security. To date there have been three major successful terrorist attacks on maritime targets. The first was the 2000 attack on USS Cole while it was making a refueling stop in Aden, Yemen. The second was the 2002 attack on the French oil tanker USS Limburg while it was anchored off Yemen. Al Qaeda on the USS Cole and USS Limburg used small explosive loaded boats to attack their target. Usage of merchant vessels to facilitate terrorist attack is one of the four ways vessels can serve/ be used as weapon. The third major attack, and probably the one least familiar to Westerners, was the 2004 attack in the Philippines on Super Ferry 14. Mr. Lorenz uses these as stepping off points for his article and states that Maritime Terrorism is not well defined by International Law (terrorism is not well defined either) and given this lack of definition points out acts that might fall under "Maritime Terrorism":
…the grey areas are cases of kidnap-for-ransom incidents, such as the May 2001 abduction of three American citizens and 17 Filipinos at the Dos Palmas resort on Palawan by Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), an Al Qaeda affiliate. Motivated by the need to finance their political aims, ASG repeatedly perpetrated such acts of piracy. Their actions are an example of the blurring of the distinction between terrorism and piracy. (Lorenz,p.4)

There are numerous roadblocks that militate against terrorist organizations developing maritime capability but a few groups have surmounted those obstacles:
Among the most experienced traditional terrorist groups that possess maritime capabilities are the Middle Eastern Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF), Fatah, Hezbollah and the South

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