Nine years ago, in January 2000, an Al Qaeda suicide boat crept up close to the US destroyer The Sullivans at the port of Aden, aiming to sink it. The boat, overloaded with bombs, sank and the attack failed. Eight months later, the attack would come again. This time, another Al Qaeda boat carrying compact plastic explosives moulded into a conical-shaped charge slammed into the hull of the US Navy destroyer Cole, leaving 19 dead and 39 injured. In a very similar attack a few months earlier, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had ripped apart the Lankan navy ship MV Uhana. The two organizations had engaged in what proved to be a deadly knowledge transfer.
This strike emboldened Al Qaeda to later plan the 9/11 attacks. In the years to follow, terrorists would launch innovative suicide boat attacks. Terrorists are not known to spring isolated attacks without an integrated agenda. Therefore, when Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists attacked Mumbai last year, questions arose whether the strikes indicated a wider reaching, long-term maritime terrorist strategy against India.
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