What do you think will be the next terrorist attack?

Great Debates
21

Is there any evidence of weaponized smallpox being anywhere? We talk and talk and talk about smallpox, but the last I heard there were only two stocks – one in the CDC and one in the equivalent in Moscow. Is all of this smallpox terrorism fear assuming that a) someone weaponized it and b) it fell into the wrong hands? Sure, it is a helluva scary disease and seemingly tailormade for suicidal nutjobs looking to inflict maximum casualties, but a) and b) are quite large assumptions to be made. It is not that I really doubt that it can be done, it is just that I haven’t heard anything directly.

The difficulty of making, storing, and distributing biological weapons in a large enough range to get mass spread is extremely logistically complex. I am not doubting that it can, and probably will be done. The al Qaeda attacks so far have been maximum efficiency with lowest technology, though. I don’t think bioweapons fit their modus operandi.

I think truck bombs, urban terrorism (like sniper attacks), bombs in skyscrapers, or chemical weapons are more likely. The arson idea mentioned above is scary and possible. If it is al Qaeda, they tend to attack Western interests, often in second countries. US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Mombassa attacks on Israelis, Bali attacks. Perhaps the next al Qaeda attacks will be at American or Western interests in SE Asia, India, Mexico, South America, South Africa. Perhaps tourist sites. Perhaps chemical, perhaps truck bomb. A chemical weapon that doesn’t get a lot of press but is really scary is aflatoxin, which causes liver cancer primarily in kids. There is evidence of a lot of aflatoxin being made by people like Saddam Hussein.

I hope we don’t see an “audacious” attack on US soil again for a while. Maybe it is harder to get operatives in, maybe we can catch 75% instead of the 10% we were catching before 9/11. I do think that the terrorist organizations would love to have a nuke or a dirty bomb but I hope the chances of them actually getting one are small. I mean, Qaddafi, Saddam, and every third-rate dictator have been trying to get their hands on them for years and haven’t succeeded. Perhaps it is more than just luck on our part. Maybe I have my head in the sand.

Anyway, if we are looking for large events on US soil, a truck bomb at a large sporting or other event (like a parade or a concert or a political event), followed by secondary ones which are sure to be seen on TV is a scary example which I think is likely. That’s where my money is.

22

I still can’t figure out why, if there really are dangerous terrorists out there that actually care about their mission, they haven’t struck again in the U.S. long before this.

To be blunt, I don’t think the terrorists are particularly devious or thoughtful. It’s ridiculously easy to inflict massive damage as long as you are willing to die in the mission (it’s plotting some way to escape alive that’s the hard part). Al Queda apparently has plenty of people who are willing to die. So, if they are really still out there and a major threat, what are they waiting for? If they were hoping to inflict continuing terror, either they’re not cutting the cheese, or the administration is doing a far better job than it’s even admitting to.

23

What “past history” vis-a-vis Westen countries and/or terrorist attacks, what “nukes,” and what “arsenal” does Iraq have? I am really tired of listening to this particular “evil-Saddam mantra.”

Makes me think they’ve already won. And I don’t mean the ME terrorists.

24

Let’s bear in mind that for the terrorists, ideally they’d do something to rival the sheer pant-wettting terror of 9/11. Something that would come totally out of the blue, would go out live on TV as it started to happen, and would have the whole world once again glued to its TV screens in horror and disbelief.

That’s not going to be easy for them, but if anyone can think of something that terrorists could stage (preferably without WMD, as al-Qaeda seem to be having difficulty with those) and that would be broadcast live as it happened, we should be thinking along those lines.

25

Oh, yeah, that’s right, I forgot. The * real * enemy is America. :rolleyes:

26

I think it unlikely that Al-Qaeda could execute anything nearly as elaborate, now that most of the top brass are missing-presumed-dead and any “long-term” sleeper operatives would probably have been deployed by now. One must remember that the simultaneous hijack of four passenger jets probably used up almost their entire human resources at the time.

I would suggest that they reverted to form, using large vehicle-bombs against civilians in countries where local groups can be cooperated with and where such acts might have important strategic or political effects (cf Bali nightclub).

If there were to be a major televised attack in a western democracy, I might guess an enormous fertiliser bomb in a van at a major sporting event. Imagining the IRA’s Canary Wharf van-bomb parked outside the Millennium Stadium here on FA Cup Final day fills me with dread.

27

I suspect Al Quida is falling apart under the arrests, the loss of funding, dead or missing leadership, & the massive fatalities they took in Afghanastan.

Some pathetic small-scale bombs will be the best they’ve got.

28

I’m starting to think (hope) you’re right. Problem is, they have a lot of affiliates (and they’ll have a lot more if the Iraq campaign gets underway). Recall, too, that they found a ricin lab in London recently.

I don’t think I’d call the Bali bombs “pathetic”.

29

I agree, Sentient , a hire van crammed with explosive parked on Oxford Street on a busy day may be unimaginative, but it’d do the job.

I’ve had my own ideas how they could cause maximum casualties without having to get their hands on WMD, but I hesitate to reveal them. I don’t want to give anyone ideas.

Incidentally, you’d struggle to get a weapon a plane these days, and also the passengers would try to rush you. But if you get could six martial arts experts on a plane, and had some way of getting through the cockpit door, would that be a feasible way of repeating 9/11?

30

Well, it’s possible that they genuinely want to compel a removal of US assets from Arab countries, as they claim. After all, originally, they commited terrorist attacks on US embassies and military forces in foreign countries - perhaps they thought that they’d only get sufficient attention by attacking the US directly. But after seeing the strong response, and realizing they were only pissing people off, they’re going back to attacking western interests in muslim-dominated countries (ie the Australian tourist town in Bali).

Unlikely, but it’s a possibility.

31

If I were going to try to hurt the U.S. I’d attack the infrastructure rather than just kill some random people. I realize it is not spectacular, but the economic destruction would cause much panic and would probably be more likely to force us into submission.
First, I’d bomb all the aquaducts going into California. Cut off the water to our food production facilities as well as the cities themselves. That could have serious consequences on our food sources.
Second, I’d bomb vulnerable transportation routes, like bridges over the Mississippi, places where several interstates come together, rail facilities, etc… Enough of these and you can cause a lot of problems both for consumers and manufacturers. If companies cannot get the components to build products, their profits go down and our economy goes with it. Next, energy. Destroy interstate power transmission lines, blow up pipelines, power production plants, oil refineries, etc… All in all it wouldn’t be too hard to do some serious damage to our country, but luckily terrorists so far have just settled for killing individuals at random.

32

You’re mischaracterize his response and pigeon-holing him in with the “america-haters” crowd.

He fears the PATRIOT-esque streak of the American government post-9/11, not America as a whole.

33

Also we need to avoid thinking Al-Q = all potential fundamentalist terrorists. I imagine there are plenty of small groups of disaffected people capable of blowing up night-clubs, completely unconnected with OBL. I’d guess there’d be even more when the war comes.

34

Or just infect a few cattle with foot and mouth. Look at the impact that had on UK farming. (Not suggesting that was a terrorist attack, just an example of max damage at no risk).

35

I’d expect an attack on a hotel full of, or a few busloads of, Western tourists in a moderate Islamic country.

The advantages to Islamist terrorists would be
[ul]
[li]an attack on people is more frightening than an attack on infrastructure or communications (remember that sucide attack on the French oil tanker Limburg in October? Those terrorists sacrificed their lives for some short notices on the back pages (and a small rise in maritime insurance rates, that the public doesn’t take notice of; and the death of a crewman which also was widely ignored as the wide public doesn’t identify with a Bulgarian merchant seaman.) Not an effective terrorist tactic, I think.)[/li][li]undermining a pro-Western government by the resulting drop in tourist revenue[/li][li]frightening particularly Americans away from ever leaving their country, making the US even more inwards-looking.[/li][/ul]

Ultimately, of course, the terrorist leaders will make do with whatever of several projects in the works doesn’t get discovered. If things would have gone just a bit differently the 9/11 hijackers might have hit some snag and the plot of a major attack in Strasbourg might have succeeded.

36

I don’t have a cite, but I saw a water plant expert being interviewed on one of those news programs (20/20, 60 minutes, etc.) who said this would be next to impossible. The amount of toxins that would have to be added to the water supply, because they would be diluted so much, would be so much that they pretty much couldn’t do it without being noticed. This would probably depend on exactly what they were adding, but he seemed confident that it wouldn’t work.

I saw on the headline ticker on Fox news this weekend that there were tips that the next target would be Jewish groups or Jewish-run businesses in the U.S. They also mentioned U.S. apartment buildings.

I’m flying internationally this weekend, out of LAX, so I’m crossing my fingers they’ve exhausted the resources they’d need to blow up airplanes.

37

I’ve been wondering why there have been no French Resistance-style attacks in the U.S. like Texican mentioned above. It would be easy, effective, and easy to get away with. One man in a car with a box of matches could set most of the western United States’ forests on fire in a week with very little chance of getting caught. That would tie up lots and lots of firefighting and first responder resources and cause chaos in places like suburban Colorado and California. Sabotaging the rail systems would be similarly easy. If you want something high-profile that would cause lots of fear among the population, how about coltrops spread over busy spots in the interstate highway system?

But if I, as a pacifist, 30-something geek, can come up with ideas like that, then I’m sure the hard core Islamofascists willing to die to take the fight to the infidels can do much, much better. So the question remains, why haven’t we seen attacks like this?

38

I would vote for a conventional explosives attack in the NYC subways.

Fill a suitcase/duffel bag with ordinary explosives, walk into Grand Central Terminal at AM rush hour, detonate.

If you want to get elaborate, have another conspirator at Penn Station, another at the Times Square Station, another at Herald Square (by Macy’s). Those are all extremely crowded, highly visible, and would be a nightmare to evacuate.

Even better (worse): a coordinated attack at Grand Central, etc., where you set off one bomb in a tight, crowded spot deep within the station (where the no. 7 train turnstiles lead up to the main GCT comes to mind … it’s a mess as is) then have your cohorts set off bombs at major exits a minute or two later (if they pretend to be fleeing like everyone else, no one will give them a second glance–they could even drop their suitcases in the rush and have them go off seconds/a minute later, so they needn’t be suicide bombers).

The NYPD is pretty on the ball re: big delivery trucks/vans and their potential as truck bomb carriers. The terrorists would be better off not putting all their eggs in one large, obvious basket. Lots of smaller baskets would be better.

39

One “low tech” prospect that scares me is the possibility of 10-20 snipers replaying the DC sniper terror on a larger scale.

40

A scenario that was outlined in the Los Angeles Times more than once…

Truck bomb pulls over to the shoulder of I-5 directly opposite the San Onofre nuclear facility (between LA and San Diego). Boom.

This scenario worried a lot of people because a) the facility is near populated areas (well, relatively near), b) the facility is near a military base, and c) hard as it is to stop a truck bomb normally, it would probably be even harder to stop one on an interstate. Around the time that the scenario appeared in the paper, the head of the NRC assured the Times that San Onofre could withstand a truck-bomb blast, but many were not convinced.