Skilled Terrorists, Financing Believed Behind Ship Blast

. “This wasn’t just two guys with a dream,” said a U.S. counter-terrorism expert

who asked not to be identified. “This was carefully planned. You need people with

explosives expertise, with logistics expertise, who know how to put together a cell,

know how to do surveillance. . . . This isn’t the work of a bunch of amateurs.”

The United States has spent more than $1.5 billion to upgrade security at

U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas since the August 1998 terrorist bombings of

American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 220 people.

The apparent attack on a 4-year-old warship, sheathed with half-inch armor and

bristling with the latest high-tech weaponry and radar, suggests a deliberate attempt

to humiliate those efforts.

…And apparently very easy to do. Los Angeles Times