An alarming report from CNN this morning has revealed that Al Qaeda operatives have been secretly plotting possible attacks on cruise ships.
According to the report, German authorities seized cryptic Al Qaeda documents hidden within porn videos that detail plans to seize passenger ships and hold passengers hostage in order to pressure the public into releasing key Al Qaeda-linked prisoners.
The plan would include dressing passengers in orange jump suits, as if they were al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and then videotaping their execution. –CNN
The documents were found in May 2011 as a 22-year-old Austrian named Maqsood Lodin was being questioned by police in Berlin after recently returning from a trip Pakistan via Budapest, Hungary, before arriving in Germany. Within the man’s underpants, interrogators found a digital file drive that included a pornographic video title “Kick Ass”, with a file marked “Sexy Tanja”, according to CNN.
Eventually those files were decoded, offering a glimpse into the inner workings of Al Qaeda and plans of future attacks, which included carrying out attacks in Europe similar to the gun attacks by Pakistani militants that paralyzed the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008, among the cruise ship plans.
It will be interesting to see how the cruise industry reacts to the news and if we will see beefed up security when cruising.
Here’s a detailed report on the story from CNN.