Bin Laden Raid Intel: Al Qaeda Considered Hitting US Oil Tankers

The Hill reports:

Al Qaeda mulled plans to target oil tankers last year as part of an effort by the terrorist organization to hobble the United States’s oil and gas infrastructure, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

DHS alerted its federal and state partners to the information in an intelligence note based on information found in the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The DHS note is meant “to provide greater insights into [al Qaeda’s] interest in targeting oil and natural gas infrastructure, ” DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said.

“However, in 2010 there was continuing interest by members of [al Qaeda] in targeting oil tankers and commercial oil infrastructure at sea,” he said.

Chandler stressed that DHS is not aware of “any specific or imminent terrorist attack plotting against the oil and natural-gas sector overseas or in the United States.”