Given the fact that al-Qaeda did pull off that attack on the USS Cole in the fall of 2000, one thing that REALLY worries me is the possibility that cruise ships operating from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Port Canaveral, Jacksonville, and Tampa could be subject to a suicide attack from a fast-moving small boat.
Given the large Muslim community in South Florida (after all, many of the September 11 hijackers had lived there!), you have to wonder have Muslim extremists seriously considered buying a fast boat like a Cigarette boat, loading it with several hundred pounds of plastique explosive, and attempting a suicide ramming mission against the many cruise ships based in Florida. The scary part is that Cigarette and similar boats have very high top speeds (70 mph plus), which makes them difficult to intercept except from the air.
I really hope that out Department of Homeland Security is watching for such a threat, because an attack with the type of boat I mentioned could cause serious damage and quite a lot of casualties on today's large cruise ships, and we don't know how well today's super-sized cruise ships can handle an explosive force to what amounts to a direct hit from a Mk. 48 torpedo used by US submarines. |