Posted on 02/06/2014 5:40:21 AM PST by ClaytonP
The Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Smith reports that a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is acknowledging for the first time that a group of snipers shot up a Silicon Valley substation for 19 minutes last year, knocking out 17 transformers before slipping away into the night.
The attack was "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred" in the U.S., Jon Wellinghoff, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time, told Smith.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
“Group of Snipers”
I seriously doubt that.
“violent” trial balloon to see how officials would react. Likely more to come.
Environazis?
Wait ‘till a robot-aimed BMG 50 is used to kill one of the engines on a passenger jet in flight.
My suspicion is eco-terrorist.
LOL!!!!
Given that sub-stations are usually located in quiet, out of the way sorts of locations; I would imagine that damaging one would not be too daunting a task.
I wondered if anyone would get it.
If indeed it is a terrorist, perhaps they were attempting to evaluate just how much havoc this would wreak with emergency response systems so they could judge its multiplicative effects when used concomitantly with future attacks against other higher value targets?
Yes, well, its ‘ancient’ history by now isnt it. So much stupid has occurred in between that its hard to keep track of it all. LOL, the all knowing govt on display.
Bang away, Mustafa!
Few years back, a local shot up the Alaska oil pipeline with a hunting rifle; kid had been drinking too much. Oil spill on the tundra. They threw the book at that Indian Kid; he didn’t even remember the incident the nx day. Wasn’t terrorism either.
This area of Santa Clara county is very sparsely populated. There are still lots of fields and places to hide. It is no real surprise that someone (for whatever their reasons) decided to fire on the Metcalf station. The bigger concern should be that instead of ‘homegrown’ terrorists, it is more likely the influx of foreign muslims into the area.
Bigger point is that again low tech terrorism defeats high tech ‘protection’
From the article, over 100 empty cartridges found grouped at multiple firing points. The shooting lasted 19 minutes. Plus, a nearby internet link and a telephone circuit were cut. This is not likely to be the work of a single agent. It might be no more than 3-4, but was almost certainly more than one.
And how does Mr. Wellinghoff know that this was “domestic terrorism” since the perpetrators have not been caught, and the evidence seems to be limited to a pile of rocks, a bunch of shell casings for 7.62 x 39 mm rounds, and presumably the bullets themselves with any possible ballistics evidence much degraded by passing through the housing and other metal components of the transformers?
I didn’t know that snipers worked in groups.
Former Solyndra employees?.................
Whoever did this had detailed schematics and knew exactly where to attack to take out the power plant. Telephone lines and other communications had been cut prior to the attack.
The question is why did they use AK-47s when explosives would be much more effective. And why did they attack only one power plant. A coordinated attack would have been much more effective.
In the article the FBI is quoted as saying they don't believe it was a terror group. There is no explanation for why they felt that way.
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