Al Qaeda "possibly" behind US "Blackout"

international | miscellaneous | press release

Tuesday August 19, 2003 16:35

by James McKenna

Thursday's massive power blackout which plunged 50 million people into darkness in the US has been claimed by Al Qaeda . While intelligence sources are vocal in their scepticism that their "enemy" is so clever, energy experts agree it is possible.

First Energy spokesman Todd Schneider , whose company was involved in the initial cascade of outages in the US last Thursday, said a hack attack was something he had "been worried about" and he admitted that, "I'd be lying to you if I told you it was not possible."

Schneider vowed his company would leave no stone unturned in its investigation. He admitted a computer hack was a possibility

The North American Electric Reliability Council , an industry monitoring group, recently passed mandatory cybersecurity regulations for all utilities, but they had not been implemented. These new security regulations follow the internet worm attack that left police, emergency services and big business out of business from Seattle to Texas the morning the Space Shuttle Colombia crashed as NASA switched on it's telemetry from Huston.

FBI officials , now as then, say there is no reason to believe that the blackout was the result of a terrorist act, sabotage, hacker, or anything along those lines. While it was "monitoring the situation," it had not launched an investigation.

Al Hayat , language newspaper printed a communique from Al Qaeda claiming, "the brigades of Abu Fahes Al Masri", had hit two main power plants supplying the eastern region of the United States and major U.S. and Canadian industrial cities.

"The operation was carried out on the orders of Usama bin Laden to hit the pillars of the U.S. economy, a realization of bin Laden's promise to offer the Iraqi people a present.

"Let the criminal Bush and his gang know that the punishment is the result of the action … the Americans lived a black day they will never forget.

"They lived a day of terror and fear ... a state of chaos and confusion where looting and pillaging rampaged the cities, just like the capital of the caliphate Baghdad, and Afghanistan and Palestine were. Let the American people take a sip from the same glass."

"Release of all detainees held by the U.S"

"Leave the land of the Muslims, including Jerusalem and Kashmir."

"We tell the people of Afghanistan and Kashmir that the gift of Sheikh Usama bin Laden is on its way to the White House."

US officials still scoff at the suggestion that Al Qaeda was behind the blackout and point to the fact that there is "no evidence" or "proof" that they did it.