Freighter held in search for explosives
Advertiser Staff and News Services
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Coast Guard officers escorted a freighter into port and began searching its cargo last night after receiving intelligence information that the ship might be carrying explosives for use in a terrorist attack.
After being held offshore for 11 hours, the Maren Maersk was brought into port last night so its 2,000-plus containers could be unloaded and searched. Investigators were using high-tech X-ray machines and radiation detectors and did not expect to complete their inspection until early today.
Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne said that drug-sniffing dogs had indicated one container could hold explosives, but a search turned up nothing.
Authorities had received a tip that an explosive was hidden on the 1,065-foot freighter, said Hector Pesquera, the FBI's special agent in charge of the Miami division. The ship originated in Bremerhaven, Germany, and was later headed to the West Coast. The final destination of some of the containers was possibly Honolulu, authorities said.
Authorities were trying to determine whether the ship and its cargo are connected to a threat to a Navy base in Hawai'i. The threat was that a large shipment of explosives would be delivered to Honolulu for use in a December attack.
The FBI's Honolulu office received a letter Tuesday from a self-proclaimed former member of al-Qaida about the possible attack. Navy commanders were later notified of the threat.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service said in a report to Navy officials that the letter, with a Boulder, Colo. return address, claimed that "a large shipment of explosives would be sent via Germany or France to Honolulu for an attack to occur in December. The shipment would allegedly be packaged as construction materials."
The Navy message noted that such write-in threats "are usually highly questionable," but that the credibility of the threat couldn't be determined without further investigation.
"Any information that we get that relates to terrorism is fully investigated, (including) this latest letter," said agent Jim Stern of the FBI office in Honolulu.
