Saturday, August 07, 2004

Tracking carriers in the Persian Gulf? Today's Washington Post has an article about some of the data carried by Babar Ahmad, the computer specialist tied with Al Qadea that the Brits recently snagged. The first two paragraphs are disconcerting: A computer specialist arrested this week in England possessed the classified routes of a U.S. naval battle group and is part of an al Qaeda branch linked to Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed that authorities on three continents have been working to dismantle in recent weeks, according to court documents released yesterday and U.S. officials. <>Babar Ahmad, who possessed three-year-old documents detailing the routes and vulnerabilities of the USS Constellation, which was then operating in the Straits of Hormuz, is the cousin of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a key figure in the recent arrests of alleged terrorist plotters, U.S. intelligence officials said. <>I wouldn't think too much of this were it not for a recent incident in the gulf where the carrier USS Kennedy collided with and sunk a dhow (small wooden boat). Dhows are incredibly common in the Gulf and somewhat innocuous, but one was used in a suicide attack against an oil facility in Iraq that killed two sailors. <> The Washington Post article gives no clues as to how our battle-group was tracked and how detailed the information is. However, it is plausible that they collecting intel on a do-it-yourself basis at sea aboard dhows. Worrisome, as one was apparently able to slip under radar and not be noticed by look-outs before the Kennedy collided with it. Terrorism suspect had U.S. ship data (Washington Post) Inquiry shapes up on wreck of Kennedy carrier, dhow (Florida Times-Union) Carrier's run-in with dhow raises red flags (Virginian-Pilot) Military comment []1:25:43 PM   trackback []