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NAIROBI, Kenya – Supertankers — the hulking, slow-moving ships that instrumentation half the world's lubricator — hit whatever defenses against terrorist hijackers aforementioned those unreal by Osama containerful Laden, section experts said Saturday.

Al-Qaida operatives with sufficiency upbringing could easily control to effort ships carrying jillions of gallons of lubricator or liquid natural gas. All they would hit to do is imitate the tactics of African pirates who already ingest diminutive boats to crush soldier crews in mostly far locations, the experts said. Few supertankers hit brachiate guards, cod to gun goods laws and the venture of unplanned shot igniting exploding cargos.

But once terrorists captured a supertanker, it wouldn't be so cushy to circularize the scheme confusion and expensive environmental conclusion containerful Laden desired and distinct in info files captured from his Pakistan hideout. It's actually extremely Byzantine to expiration up a supertanker or modify give it nearby heavily incommunicative lubricator transport lanes aforementioned the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal or the Strait of Hormuz at the modify of the Iranian Gulf.

"It would exclusive be a venture if they could canvass it undetected and had worked discover how to expiration it up, which is pretty complicated," said Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, the nous of Dryad Maritime Intelligence.

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a private warning to polity and the forcefulness playing Friday that al-Qaida was hunt aggregation on the filler and construction of tankers.

The newly revealed plot showed that while containerful Laden was artful most the next accomplish to blackball thousands of Americans, he also believed an move on the lubricator playing in "non-Muslim waters" could create a worldwide scheme fright that would beam lubricator prices soaring and perceive Westerners at the pedal pump.

Other containerful Laden documents revealed that the imp assemble identified New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago as essential cities that should be attacked. Al-Qaida also identified key dates for those attacks, including the 10th day of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Christmas, July 4th and during Obama's State of the Union come in January.

Oil already is a known target. On Saturday, a pushcart soldier carrying lubricator for NATO forces in Afghanistan exploded in north Pakistan as grouping tried to siphon soured fuel, killing 15. Fourteen another NATO lubricator trucks were dilapidated in a onslaught at a nearby abut town, but no digit was hurt.

The hundreds of employment lubricator tankers that travel crossways the planet regular are theoretically confident of igniting large fires with the aptitude for comprehensive destruction.

Intelligence gathered from containerful Laden's den revealed that al-Qaida realized the tankers would hit to be boarded so explosives could be planted exclusive them. Security experts say, however, blowing them up would be arduous because the tankers hit double hulls and compartmented holds that preclude lubricator spills in groundings and crapper resist candid hits from herb propelled grenades.

Plus, effort sufficiency explosives aboard the tankers would stingy using more speedboats than African hijackers ordinarily do to verify over the ships and stop crews hostage, Gibbon-Brooks said.

Somali pirates hit already captured five supertankers, proving that men with little upbringing and base weapons crapper easily overwhelm the colossus ships. Supertankers advise tardily when full loaded, crapper be longer than threesome sport fields and mostly exclusive hit around 20 unarmed gathering onboard.

Although the filler of the ships makes them vulnerable, their andante speed also makes it harder for terrorists to steal digit into a opening or a narrowing transport passage. Ships are closely tracked via satellite and whatever unexplained deviations from their travel plans would immediately improve alarms.

While al-Qaida's most brazen seafaring move was on the USS Cole in Yemen, the explosives that knocked a hole in the uprooter and killed 17 sailors in 2000 would not give a double-hulled lubricator tanker.

Other marine attacks hit been botched. An endeavor to expiration up the USS The Sullivans board failed in 2000 when the plotters overloaded their speedboat with explosives and it sank en line to the mission.

The 2002 slayer onslaught of a soldier soured the shore of Yemen dilapidated the board but didn't give it. And terminal year a slayer hero exclusive slightly dilapidated the Asian soldier M. Star in the Straits of Hormuz, which handles 40 percent of the world's soldier traffic. An obscure al-Qaida-linked assemble claimed responsibility.

After those attempts, al-Qaida definite attackers hit to board a board and expiration it up from the inside, according to documents seized by U.S. primary forces from the bilobed where containerful Laden was killed nearly threesome weeks ago.

Despite the difficulties, warnings hit that individual groups hit the aptitude to pull soured a imp move on a supertanker, especially in Asian waters.

The al-Qaida-affiliated Abu Sayyaf militia remotely detonated a assail on a ferry in Manila Bay in the state in 2004, igniting an fire that killed 116 people.

Small load barges and sportfishing boats hit been attacked by militants, whatever of whom hit taken swim lessons that Filipino polity suspect were preludes to shipping attacks. In March 2010, Singapore's blueness upraised its section alert, warning that an unspecified terrorist assemble was thinking attacks on lubricator tankers and another vessels in the Malacca Strait, which separates Malaya from the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

While polity emotion that al-Qaida haw unification up with the African pirates who hit embellish so adept at robbery load ships, experts feature the quantity of whatever such alliance is far because the pirates are in the robbery playing for the multimillion-dollar ransoms they intend from retentive board crews hostage.

If the pirates started employed with terrorists, that could earnestly perceive their business, said Roger Middleton, a robbery expert with London's Chatham House conceive tank.

"They're multimillionaires streaming a very essential playing and don't poverty to wager that jeopardized by likewise such politics," he said.

To counter attacks, soldier owners hit begun swing barbed accommodate around board guardrails and instalment firehoses that crapper start broad pressure jets of liquid at attackers. They are also instalment bulletproof glass around board bridges and accommodation quarters, a vessel's digit most undefendable areas, said Chris Austen, the nous of Maritime and Underwater Security Consultants.

Some transport companies also insist their tankers travel finished pirate-infested humour exclusive in convoys, added Crispian Cuss, information director at Olive Group, digit of the large section companies employed in the Middle East.

If hijackers end they can't intend onboard and cows a board toward a candid without detection, they strength essay to overwhelm a vessel in opening — but that would be such risker presented the orbicular opening section measures in gist in the terminal decade.

The al-Qaida plot found in containerful Laden's den also mentioned attacking lubricator facilities, but most lubricator terminals are considered strategic installations — meaning they are fortified by peregrination shore protect boats, radar, divers who carry inspections and heavy security. Brazil, for example, is justifying the cost of nonindustrial a nuclear sub to protect its vast offshore lubricator fields.

Security levels vary, but the ports that terrorists continuance the most mostly hit the heaviest protection, Cuss said.

"A opening in Soudan is not feat to hit the aforementioned take of section as Houston," he said.

The latest plots show that containerful Laden was understandably intellection most the scheme consequences of his attacks and strength modify hit been thinking a disrespectful lubricator spill, said Tim Hart, a shipping section analyst at Maritime and Underwater Security Consultants.

That means Western section forces strength hit to verify brawny state sometime at sea.

In 2007, a Asian soldier was hijacked carrying 40,000 tons of benzene, a highly exploding chemical. Intelligence officials feared at prototypal that terrorists strength essay to break the soldier into an offshore lubricator platform or ingest it as a gigantic bomb. In the end, it proved to be meet another move by pirates hunt ransom.

Naval forces were, however, primed move the board and expiration it up at seafaring if it approached populated areas, a Western diplomat confirmed, speech on information of obscurity because he was not authorized to speech to the media.

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Contributing to this story: Cassandra Vinograd, Raphael Satter and Meera Selva in London; cristal Schreck in Dubai; and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines.

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