Maritime Terrorism: Vancouver's SeaBus a target for terrorists?

The North Shore Outlook recently reported that terrorists on Canadian soil have “scoped out” Vancouver’s SeaBus as a possible maritime target in advance of the 2010 Olympics. Furthermore, the report stated that TransLink, the operator of the Sea Bus, may not be prepared for the potential threat. “The police and national security folks know that [...]

Analyzing the USS Cole Bombing

By Akiva J. Lorenz | Maritime Terrorism
On October 12, 2000, the USS Cole, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, was attacked by a small craft loaded with 270 kg of C-4 explosives while making a routine refill stop in the port of Aden, Yemen. Steered by two Saudi suicide terrorists, Hassan al Khamri and Ibrahim [...]

Maritime Security: Federal Efforts Needed to Address Challenges in Preventing and Responding to Terrorist Attacks on Energy Commodity Tankers

U.S. Government Accountability Office
December 10, 2007

U. S. energy needs rest heavily on ship-based imports. Tankers bring 55 percent of the nation’s crude oil supply, as well as liquefied gases and refined products like jet fuel. This supply chain is potentially vulnerable in many places here and abroad, as borne out by several successful overseas attacks [...]

The Threat of Maritime Terrorism to Israel

By Akiva J. Lorenz | Maritime Terrorism
The purpose of this essay is to define maritime terrorism and analyze Palestinian and Al Qaeda’s maritime capabilities, focusing on the 1970s and from 2000 to 2006.
Maritime Terrorism has become a buzzword among security experts over the past seven years. Incidents such as the attacks on USS Cole (October [...]

Al Qaeda's Maritime Threat

By Akiva J. Lorenz | Maritime Terrorism
Terrorism is a phenomenon which citizens of most countries have been tragically familiar with long before the infamous 9/11 attacks in the United States. Despite the long history of a successful fight against the plague of traditional forms of political terrorism, security services have underestimated the threat which militant [...]

Maritime Security: Potential Terrorist Attacks and Protection Priorities

By Paul W. Parfomak and John Frittelli
Resources, Science, and Industry Division
Congressional Research Service
A key challenge for U.S. policy makers is prioritizing the nation’s maritime security activities among a virtually unlimited number of potential attack scenarios. While individual scenarios have distinct features, they may be characterized along five common dimensions: perpetrators, objectives, locations, targets, and tactics. [...]