Terror In The Gulf - A Love Story

2013

TERROR IN THE GULF

Prologue - It Could Happen Again

On April 20, 2010 an explosion and a subsequent massive oil spill occurred offshore Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven lives were lost and the oil well, known as British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon, gushed for 87 days dumping 4.9 million gallons of raw oil into coastal recreational waters. The entire drilling rig and platform sank to the bottom of the gulf at approximately 5000 feet below sea level. It was the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, far greater than the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaskan waters. The damage to the ecosystem placed a large portion of the gulf in crisis and cleanup is still continuing. Due to the months-long spill, together with adverse effects from the response and cleanup activities, extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats, the shrimp industry, fishing and tourism industries, and toxic human health problems have continued.

The President of the United States of America immediately called a six-month deep-water drilling moratorium. Blame was placed, money flowed, birds, shrimp, oysters, fish and even porpoises died, environmentalists lectured, lawyers prospered, tourists went elsewhere, jobs were lost, and new industry safety rules and inspection requirements were initiated. Superficial recovery has taken place and several years later so many new drilling licenses have been issued that production is nearing pre-spill levels. Such environmental havoc and death can happen again, but not by accident.

The overall effect on the US economy did not go unnoticed by member nations of OPEC or by certain terrorist groups in the Middle East. The genesis of a possible destructive plot took form in the minds of al- Qaeda leaders to be enacted when the timing and resources made such a daring strike possible. It was thought that more than just one drilling platform could be destroyed and the effect of the Deepwater Horizon disaster would be magnified.

During a recent annual meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at their headquarters in Vienna, the twelve member nations were mostly in agreement on basic objectives – retain a stable market, maintain the current world production and protect the environment. There was considerable discussion and debate regarding the possibility of a worldwide oil glut due to increased production in the United States. The newer down-hole hydraulic fracking techniques in West Texas, North Dakota and eastern Montana, as well as the probability of the Keystone Pipeline from Canada being someday approved, would reduce U.S. dependency on foreign imports from the OPEC nations. The OPEC cartel produces only 40% of the world’s crude oil, but it has strong influence on worldwide prices, supply and policy.

For several years, oil prices had generally hovered around the $100 per barrel mark, either following the laws of supply and demand or artificial manipulation. The price would rise higher at times of extreme conflict in the middle east, or dip a few dollars in times of over-production or worldwide calm, but for two of the member countries, even $100.00 was not high enough. Iran and Venezuela wanted to hike prices to sweeten their own overstressed federal treasuries. Economic sanctions had taken a serious toll on Iran, and a recent massive oil spill in Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo had dealt a blow to that country’s exports. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister prevailed in spite of looming all-out civil war across Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan and the rest of the member nations reached consensus with the Saudis. The specter of an ISIS Caliphate’s effect on cost per barrel remained an unknown. The meeting was adjourned without price changes being made.

That was not acceptable to several nations and they felt something had to be done about it. In addition to OPEC’s twelve members, there were two Associate Members in attendance – Brazil and Colombia. These two had no OPEC voting power due to the fact that their daily production was lower than the others and fluctuated too much from day to day due to political and technical problems. After the main OPEC meeting adjourned, the more aggressive oil ministers of three rogue nations remained in Vienna and met in secret to discuss an objective more favorable to their own country’s financial interests – they wanted to disrupt oil production in the United States and thereby force higher prices world wide.

US production had recently exceeded 9 million barrels per day and was on a path to surpass both Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s top producer. It was agreed that additional actions were needed so that the United States should not, would not, could not, slow or halt imports from Middle Eastern or South American petroleum nations. The three nations were Iran, Venezuela, and Colombia, but they needed a terrorist partner who would accept the blame and provide the manpower. They discussed the previous effects of the 2010 British Petroleum Deepwater oil spill. Several high-level al-Qaeda agents were flown in to the meeting from Iraq and Syria to help with the planning. The Vienna springtime was a welcome respite from the searing desert heat, and money and available legal sex always made good partners for a few extra days meeting in the Austrian capital.

One of the Iraqi agents put it simply: Remember how well a certain amount of C4 explosives carried by a small craft worked on the USS Cole in Yemen back in 2000. The Americans were so surprised at losing 17 men and being disgraced with that huge hole in the side of their ship. Perhaps we can expand the concept of the suicide car bomb, so effective in many of our countries, and take it to sea with even greater success.

The Colombian oil minister told the group, I have a dependable source of explosives and weapons in Mexico and available for a reasonable fee. I will not reveal any names, but my contact is trustworthy.

The Venezuelan oil minister added. This mission is important to our nation’s economy. If the price per barrel of oil falls even more than it has recently, it is important that more than one oil platform is destroyed.

They all agreed.

Another said, What we need are a couple of lone wolf explosive experts that can go to the Mexican Gulf undetected and duplicate the BP disaster. Our timing will be excellent as long as the U.S. Government policies remain so pacified and confused. I believe our other Arab nations will eventually thank us.

There was a round of applause after which the Iranian Minister slammed his fist down on the conference table, breaking several cocktail glasses, and loudly proclaimed, By Allah’s beard, we cannot allow the United States to become energy independent. Iran will finance the mission!

The group all said, Allah be praised in unison and finished their drinks. Coded cell phone messages went out to select locations around the world. Greed and evil ruled the day. There would be Terror in the Gulf.

Chapter 1 – A Mexican Coastal Town

There’s a sleepy coastal village on the northeast corner of Mexico by the name of Las Perlas. No one knows the exact population, but the last census placed it at around 1700 persons and that hasn’t changed much in years. The natural offshore pearl beds are all gone, and the town is now known for fishing, hunting and churning out healthy Mexican babies who somehow grow up in poverty and run away to the big cities such as Monterey or Mexico City. A Catholic church is still under construction, as it has been for the past thirty years. There is hope, but even if completed, there would be no money for furnishings, vestments, a full time priest, or even a bell. On most Sundays, if not too hot or raining, a few of the old and faithful sometimes meet near the fountain in the town’s plaza for prayers and informal self-conducted services. There are no offerings to complete the church; the people save their pesos for bare necessities. Unlike pearls for which the town is named, this Mexican village lost its luster long ago. The town is also known to be a prime target for summer hurricanes, so its riverside business section, harbor, and homes are all wisely located a couple of miles inland from the beach, but only a few feet above sea level.

Nothing much happens in Las Perlas – perhaps an occasional gunfight between a jealous husband and an out-of-town would-be Romeo (no-one ever actually gets killed), or torrential rains and high winds once or twice a year that usually flood the town. An occasional minor brawl might break out in one of the local bars between American fishermen from Texas and the competing commercial fishermen from the local harbor who are trying to make a living and defend their fishing territories. There hasn’t been a real murder for many years.

Only one street is paved – the one that ends at the beach - and it is full of potholes with no hope of ever being repaired. Tumbleweeds are free to roam and dust devils swirl throughout the open spaces between old one story, faded pastel, stucco buildings to choke the shoppers in the open market; everything is covered with fine-grained sand and dust. The only things that grow are the colorful red, orange and purple bougainvillea, a few palm trees and various salt marsh grasses near the shore. Chickens run wild and are free for anyone to grab for the evening cooking pot. The flies are almost intolerable because of the nearby fishing fleet and lack of any real trash service; the principal trash service is the river. Half naked barefoot children run helter-skelter in the streets when not in the two-room schoolhouse. And tourists arriving from the United States ask, Where the heck is the beach? It is near the ocean, gringo! is the sarcastic response, or Straight ahead estupido. At twelve or half-past noon, the four block commercial section shuts down for the rest of the afternoon for siesta and doesn’t open up again until the cool of the evening or some time the next morning, depending how the owners feel about going to work. Mañana has always been the answer to most every decision.

There is just one Pemex gas station near the edge of town that periodically runs out of slightly watered-down low octane product. Contrarily, there are far too many fish taco stands, most are excellent differing only in the salsa recipe and age of the fish. The only two viable commercial enterprises in Las Perlas are hunting and fishing – if you don’t count the red light bars. Guns are plentiful and sporting game is hunted in the rugged near-by hills. The fishing is truly superb in either the Rio Hondo River or offshore in the warm waters of the Gulf, depending on what kind of fish one wants to have for dinner that night. Few cars or trucks are new, and if they are new when brought to town the salty air, floods, potholes and thieves soon take their toll.

No, nothing much unusual happens in Las Perlas, until now. There are two strangers in town, with foreign accents, asking a lot of questions, looking for a boat.

Chapter 2 – Bagdad to Las Perlas

The secret meeting in Vienna between Iran, Venezuela, and Colombia resulted in a daring but simple plan that, if successful, would in one swift action raise world wide oil prices overnight and bring the American government a little closer to economic and political chaos. While world attention was focusing on the civil war in Syria and the renewed fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan, here was an opportunity to strike a blow against the Western infidels. Al-Qaeda was the perfect partner.

Ever since the horrifying destruction of the two World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda’s petty attempts at terrorism within the borders of the USA were considered inadequate – too small and too few – and some had been stopped prior to the terrorist’s intended destruction by various branches of America’s Homeland Security or FBI. Many terrorist attacks around the rest of the world – such as the USS Cole, the shopping mall in Nairobi, and attacks in Bali, Riyadh, Jakarta, Istanbul, Mumbai, London, Madrid, Benghazi and the Boston marathon - had killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands, but nothing recent or significant had been accomplished in the Western Hemisphere.

The cooperation of al-Qaeda terrorism was needed to carry out this new destruction. Since the relative success of the Arab Spring, the surprising American government’s political cover-up of the Benghazi attack, and lack of any comprehensive American foreign policy, the al-Qaeda leadership was much emboldened. America’s resolve to fight terrorism seemed to al-Qaeda to be a policy of the previous administration, but less intensive, less committed. A plan was devised, agreed upon, manned, and financed by Iran and the three rogue nations. It would require international cooperation. If such a strange coalition could work together, al-Qaeda and the three oil nations could accomplish an outcome fully satisfying to both groups. If such a unique plan could succeed, it would attract new al- Qaeda recruits and inspire Jihadists worldwide.

Even though the U.S. Mexican border was said to leak like a sieve, it was too well monitored to allow entry of a team of terrorists who required coordinated timing, good communications, special explosives, a proper boat and a support team. The key to the plan was to avoid entry into the United States and rely on simplicity. There were already many al-Qaeda agents crossing the border. And, the Mexican government wasn’t worried about al-Qaeda; they had other problems with their own drug cartels, poverty, migrant children from Central America and an artificial promise to help plug the border. The terrorist attack across the Gulf would originate from Mexico.

After the secret meeting in Vienna, an al-Qaeda agent was sent to the city of Basrah in the south of Iraq. He was instructed, with the help of residual al-Qaeda agents living there, to select two men, favorable to the destructive cause - two men they could trust with money and explosives. Basrah is in a major oil producing area near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and near Iranian Gulf tanker terminals. Certainly two worthy men could be found with radical political leanings favorable to al-Qaeda and knowledge of oil wells. The British military had completed their version of training and pacification in the south of Iraq and in 2009 had gone home leaving a government vacuum in the area. Local al-Qaeda secret records in Basrah had a list of Shiite Moslems who had fought with or against the British; it didn’t make any difference which, and who had worked in the oil fields prior to America’s first Gulf War - Operation Desert Storm. Men were needed that had some knowledge of explosives and fortunately were still alive. The list was very short, since most Iraqi men with such talents had been killed or captured during the on-going war years. Scholars worried that Iraq, like other war torn nations, would have future generational gaps – the unborn children that occur as a consequence of any war.

Several of the candidates had been in on the original setting of the 600 Kuwaiti oil well fires in early 1991. A few candidates were thought to be beneath America’s intelligence radar and were not on any No Fly lists. Such men were identified, interviewed, screened, and told they should volunteer for the glory of Islam. Two candidates were selected and sent to al-Qaeda core headquarters somewhere on the outskirts of Bagdad for interrogations and briefings. The two men were Hakim Al-Basri and Yusuf Al-Halabi, both in their early 40s, both once dedicated to al-Qaeda - or said they had been - and also said they were willing to go anywhere and do anything to avenge the destruction of their country. They were second cousins, were both now widowed and their extended families and friends had either been killed by the British military or had fled as refugees to surrounding countries. Their wives and children were referred to as collateral damage and had been killed by seemingly random drone attacks or caught in lethal crossfire. Any real allegiance of the two men to Iraq, al-Qaeda or even portions of Islam had been lost to sorrow and chaos. What was the point of perpetual war?

Hakim Al-Basri and Yusuf Al-Halabi were sick and tired of war and disillusioned. Both men had seen too much suffering for too many years. As younger men they had also fought against the Iranians. Now, each man had a personal hidden agenda. They wanted to escape Iraq and the entire Middle East.

They were given travel funds in US dollars and traveler’s checks, airline tickets, maps of Mexico, false American identities, matching drivers’ licenses and credit cards. Yusuf al-Halabi was given the Hebrew name Benjamin Moosa and Hakim al-Basri became Joshua Lukas. It was hoped, by the Iraqi office issuing passports, that Biblical names would help minimize suspicion. What official would associate a Jewish name with an Arab?

They were also given two of the expensive Iridium Model 9575 satellite phones with worldwide coverage, since they would be operating from the Gulf of Mexico. They were told to call in when they reached Las Perlas and every two days after that; also to limit personal use and conserve battery life. Any per minute usage fees would be paid in Iraq. Such portable phones need re-charging and the two men were instructed not to leave the phones on when not in use – that thirty hours was the max if left in standby mode. They were given a DC Auto charger for use in any vehicle and most boats, in case the batteries did need charging.

It was assumed that both Moosa and Lukas could swim – they had grown up near the Persian Gulf. They were given a two-day crash course in SCUBA in a small dirty, half filled swimming pool on the outskirts of Bagdad. They took short courses in American slang, western personality traits, given western clothing and told to become and remain clean-shaven. Full beards attracted too much attention in the west. Each man packed a tiny but beautifully woven prayer rug. The necessary C4 explosives were to be obtained in Mexico using the help of Colombian government contacts in cooperation with a Mexican drug cartel. There is a dotted line connection between most rebel groups, even across international borders. Hakim and Yusuf were to head for Cuba after the mission, when successful. There, they would be welcomed, well rewarded and temporarily cared for before returning to Iraq as heroes. Neither Hakim nor Yusuf had any intention of returning to Iraq.

Al-Qaeda and the rogue nation leaders felt the odds of success were 60/40 or better because of the simple low profile design of the plan – three men and a Mexican trawler captain causing such economic and destructive chaos. There was excellent financial leverage of only several hundred thousand dollar expenses in return for billions in lost American oil revenues and gulf environmental problems. It was a good idea and they had to try.

Neither Hakim nor Yusuf were dummies and recognized the dangers involved in the mission. Both men were survivors and were similar in their habits in that they had not always done exactly what was expected of them, by their employers or by past Iraqi military commanding officers. Deception is part of the genetic make up of many Arabs. They say one thing and do another; the wisdom of Allah dictates to always have an alternate purpose, to identify and exercise options. They both recognized and agreed with each other on the hopelessness of any peaceful future in Iraq. The American military had departed and al-Qaeda’s influence was expanding across the entire Middle East and into much of Northern Africa.

Militants had recently occupied key Iraqi cities like Fallujah and Ramadi. The American sponsored coalition forces past victories and pacification in Iraq seemed to have been a waste of time, body parts and death. A future normal life in Iraq no longer seemed possible. Privately, the two men were tired of the constant sectarian killings between Sunnis and Shiites, or between tribes, that seemed to be ongoing and growing more violent. They were fearful of the possibility of extreme Sharia Law, being returned to Iraq. All they had known during their adult lives was meaningless war that seemed to have been ongoing since the time of Mohammed. There were rumors of a radical Islamist Caliphate developing out of Syria. Why stick around for a future blood bath? They yearned for peace, but even more than that, they yearned for freedom, a true freedom that could only be found outside of the influence of Islam in spite of peaceful teachings to the contrary.

How can our Moslem faith be a peaceful faith, when a stated objective is to kill all non-believers? questioned Yusuf of his friend.

It can’t, answered Hakim. "There are many examples of religious tolerance in our Quran, but our fanatical leadership has lost sight of forgiveness, understanding or respect in their