Middle East

Bimco pours cold water on Suez terror attacks

Copenhagen: The world’s largest shipowning body, Bimco, has moved to throw cold water on the hot topic of Suez Canal terror attacks. While acknowledging that the canal is “a tempting target for terrorists” Bimco stressed it was important not to exaggerate the threat to shipping and indeed more importantly the threat to closing the canal, which the organsisation said could only really be done for any length of time by sinking a number of ships. “Even the bridges being damaged could be cleared quite quickly,” Bimco said.

“There is the threat of continued small arms attacks on vessels,” Bimco admitted. However, the Copenhagen-headquartered firm said the YouTube video of the RPG attack on the Cosco Asia containership 10 days ago was being discredited by intelligence analysts. The official Cosco report says that the side of ship was not struck.

“Even if RPGs were fired – we suspect they were – they could cause casualties but no fundamental damage,” Bimco noted. Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden have used the weapon innumerable times without sinking a ship.

“Intelligence to date suggests it is difficult to see the incident on 31 August as anything more than an opportunist attack by militants unaffiliated with any external insurgent group who saw an opportunity to embarrass Egypt’s military government,” Bimco reckoned.

Further attacks of this type will likely have the same negligible effect,” it concluded.  [10/09/13]

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