Global Security, Privacy, & Risk Management

Detained 3 Al Qaeda members reveal plot to blow up commercial tankers! September 5, 2011

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani intelligence officers working with the CIA arrested three members of Al Qaeda including a top operative believed to have been tasked by Usama bin Laden with targeting American economic interests around the world, Pakistan’s army said Monday.

Younis al-Mauritani’s arrest — made public five days before the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — was seen as a blow to Al Qaeda’s central leadership in Pakistan, further degrading its ability to mount terrorist attacks abroad. The terrorist organization has seen its senior ranks thinned since Usama bin Laden was killed May 2 along with Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, the group’s No.2, in a CIA missile strike last month.

The statement said al-Mauritani was mainly responsible for Al Qaeda’s international operations and was tasked by bin Laden with hitting targets of economic importance in America, Europe and Australia. It said he was planning to target U.S. economic interests including gas and oil pipelines, power generating dams and oil tankers transiting in international waters by using explosive-laden speed boats to attack them.

It named the other two detainees as Abdul-Ghaffar al-Shami and Messara al-Shami.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment. The U.S. has said it doesn’t know of any specific Al Qaeda plot to attack the U.S. ahead of Sept. 11.