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Journalism of Courage
Website WikiLeaks published details of sites around the globe which the US deems vital to its interests,prompting criticism that it is helping militants identify targets for attack. The details are part of 2,50,000 diplomatic cables obtained by the campaigning website which are being made public.
The list begins with a cobalt mine in Kinshasa,Congo and refers to various locations in Europe where drug companies produce insulin,treatment for snake bites and foot and mouth vaccines. In West Asia,it notes that Qatar will be the largest source of imported liquified natural gas (LNG) by 2012 and also refers to the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia,the largest crude oil process and stabilisation plant in the world. Al-Qaeda mounted an unsuccessful attack on Abqaiq in 2006 and there were warnings that the WikiLeaks cable setting out so many sensitive targets could help militants.
In February 2009 the State Department asked all US missions abroad to list all installations whose loss could critically affect US national security. The list includes pipelines,communication and transport hubs,the BBC reported.
A number of BAE Systems plants involved in joint weapons programmes with the US are listed,along with a marine engineering firm in Edinburgh which is said to be critical for nuclear powered submarines. In some cases,specific pharmaceutical plants or those making blood products are highlighted for their crucial importance to the global supply chain,the BBC said.
The cable refers to places where undersea communications cables reach land and energy routes including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which runs from Azerbaijan to Turkey.
Former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind accused WikiLeaks of being irresponsible. This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing, he told The Times.
Professor Richard Aldrich of Warwick University said it had the potential to help militants find soft targets. What it says to terrorists is at the moment you are attacking highly defended targets of relatively low value,what you could be doing is attacking high value targets that are relatively weakly defended, he told BBC. So the message has the potential to change the pattern of a number of terrorists groups around the world.
