Terrorist follow up post 9/11

[Charlie Foxtrot]

One thing that struck me following the 9/11 attack was the lack of a follow up. As I thought of the next most likely target it struck me that the tunnels linking New York/Manhattan/New Jersey and closer to home the Windsor/Detroit tunnels would make very tempting targets with deisel/fertilizer bombs in delivery vans. I'm not aware of high scrutiny in regards to bridge traffic or tunnel traffic but then again when I went to Windsor prior to 9/11 it was by passenger vehicle. So let me propose that instead of aiming for a KO punch with the hijacked planes they decide to strike simultaneously at the New York/Manhattan/New Jersey tunnels with delivery van bombs cutting off parts of Manhattan as a follow up to the WTC attacks sowing both confusion and spreading terror. An attack at the Detroit/Windsor tunnel most likely would have further impacted production of the big 3 and the related suppliers driving the U.S. into a deeper recession as the security at the borders and bridges would be heightened further delaying the delivery of key parts in our JIT manufacturing model. Any thoughts as to the likelihood that this could have occurred or what the further ramifications would be to the length and impact of the recession post 9/11?

[NapoleonXIV]

Well, latest info says the terrorists had planned on 10 simultaneous hijackings at one time.

I think possibly you are overestimating the sensitivity of our general transportation systems to disruptions. If a terrorist could cause such problems with a bomb, or even many well placed bombs in a choke point(s) then what about a few bad accidents at the same time or a large storm etc, etc? Terrorists aren't the only things that we have police and fire depts for and they seem to have functioned well up until now.

Also, remember that these people are not economics and transport experts. The terrible and prodigious results of the WTC crashes by all accounts surprised the terrorists most of all

[DMA]

Just a couple of thoughts here.

First is the purpose or aims of any terrorist group - even one like Al Q. They don't have to go on a wild bombing spree in order to get citizens in a wild panic & government reacting in what seems a useless fashion. The terrorist strategy is to terrorise, but to do it in such a fashion where governments are forced to act in an authoritarian manner which impacts, not overly much on the terrorists, but on the civilans it's supposed to protect. In doing so, especially in democratic countries, the idea is then that the general population turns on the government thus removing it. In other words, the terrorists want the "oppressed" citzens to turn on their own government & remove it from office. As the "theory" goes, a small group of people (the terrorists) can get the population of a country to do the thing that the terrorists can't do - that is remove the government of an enemy nation-state & hence drastically change the policies of the enemy to benefit terrorists. The only problem is that this terrorist "theory" has hardly ever worked, although it could be argued that the PLO & IRA have had some success to a certain degree.

The other thing is, by the very nature that most terrorist groups aren't all that large &/or don't have a lot of resources, they are limited in their attacks. Al Q, in their 9/11 attack, probably only had a few skilled pilots who were willing to kill themselves. So, even though they may have first thought of having 10 hijackings, they only had the skilled personnel to hijack 4 planes. The follow-up, that being bombs going off elsewhere, would require even more personnel thus expanding the number required overall way past the 20 or so persons already involved. Such an operation is, although not impossible for a group like Al Q, but it's stretching it to the limit. More importantly, the more people involved in such a clandestine operation, means the higher probability that they'd get caught. As such, in a follow-up operation, it's better to use a strategy such as sending Anthax through the postal service (which was done in the aftermath of 9/11), as such a method of attack requires only one person, who can attack a large number of targets simultaneously, whilst gaining much safety in return due to the anonymity that comes with posting a letter.