Did Al-Qaeda in China Blow Up Malaysian Airliner?

By Chriss Street

The disappearance in the Gulf of Thailand of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to Beijing, China after 2 hours 5 minutes of normal flight may have the trademarks of a terrorist attack against China by Al Qaeda.  

China’s Ministry of Defense on November 30th began militarily enforcing an expanded Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) covering the oil rich Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and wasabout to claim a new ADIZ covering the oil rich Spratly/Nansha  Islands

in the South China Sea.  These ADIZs are highly contested by Japan, Vietnam, Philippines and South Korea.  The loss of Flight 370 follows terrorist attacks by Uighur Muslims on October 28^th near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and the March 1^st attack that killed 33 and wounded 143 at the Kunming railways station in southern China.  Both assaults appear to have Al Qaeda’s terrorist trademark of attacking symbolic public venues to inflict media-visible casualties.

Los Angeles Times reported “Mikael Robertsson, cofounder of FlightRadar24, which tracks about 120,000 flights per day with 3,000 receivers around the world, said the last transmission it recorded from the flight was at 35,000 feet.”FlightRadar believes MH 370 “lost radar contact about 40 minutes into the flight, not two hours as the airline said.”  He added, “I don’t want to speculate, but something very sudden happened.”

Thai Meteorological Department reported the cool and sunny weather with Southerly winds 10-20 km/hr.  I estimate the age of the Boeing 777-200 was about 11 years old.  The plane disappeared carrying 225 passengers, two infants and 12 crew members.  The only fatal accident of any Boeing 777 after 18 years of revenue service was Asiana Airlines Flight 214, where pilot error caused the plane to miss the runway in San Francisco.  I has been confirmed that 152 of Flight 370’s passengers, or 67%, were Chinese citizens  on a regularly scheduled 5 hour and 55 minute flight.

Given that two passengers were reported to be flying on a stolen Austrian and a stolen Italian passport and the plane to vanish at altitude may indicate a catastrophic event, such as the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland.  When the bomb went off, the image of the transponder suddenly disappeared from an air traffic controller’s screen as he was instructions to the pilot by radio.  A few seconds later, radar showed the Boeing jet was already breaking apart.  National Transportation Safety Board determined that within fraction of a second after the blast, large sections of the forward fuselage were ripped away.  The people on board the remaining section of the plane immediately lost consciousness while the main body of the plane tipped forward, broke into several pieces and began to plummet.  The plane and debris fell at 120 miles an hour and hit the ground twenty-six seconds later.

Recently Muslim Turkic Uighur militants who have been fighting an insurgency for years in the remote northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang against Chinese rule, changed tactics and began organized attacks against random civilians in populated areas.  This terrorist “tradecraft” matches actions by Al Qaeda affiliates.  Affiliates are trained to identify high visibility targets, use surveillance to find security weaknesses and then contrive effective means to exploit the vulnerability.  Senior Al Qaeda planners are always looking for novel approaches, such as using jumbo jets as human-guided cruise missiles in America and blowing up the train station near the Sochi Olympics with an improvised explosive device hidden as a pregnancy prosthetic.

On October 28^th, three Uighurs drove a jeep around a barrier and sped toward Tiananmen Square, the most politically sensitive spot in China.  They crashed into a wall next to the large portrait of Mao Zedong that hangs near the entrance to the Imperial Palace.  The car was then detonated, killing the passengers, two tourists and wounding 38.  On March 1^st, a group of around 10 knife-wielding Uighurs traveled 3,000 miles to stab victims indiscriminately at Kunming railway station in Yunnan, China.  Police shot and killed four attackers and arrested one female attacker.  But the area was covered in blood from the 33 killed and 143 wounded, several Uighurs escaped.

The Chinese Communist Party called the Kunming attack “organized, premeditated, violent terror attack” and Chinese President Xi Jinping told the country to maintain a high level of awareness about the dangers of terrorism and urged police to increase security measures, especially in crowded areas.  To calm public fears, populated transportation centers are now visibly inundated with black-clad anti-terrorism troops.

The disappearance of Flight 370 occurred during the politically sensitive annual meeting    of the China’s National People’s Congress (CNPC) and People’s Political Consultative Congress (PPCC) that began March 5^th.  In the past five years the total assets of Chinese banks have exploded by an unprecedented $15.4 trillion to an epic $24 trillion – some two and a half times the nation’s entire GDP.  As American domestic energy costs fall due to the surge of supply from shale fracking, Chinese manufacturers uncompetitive in cost.  With trillions in debt beginning to default, China has stepped-up military spending by 12% and is determined to aggressively assert military claims for oil-rich islands off the eastern China coast held by other nations.

China’s Ministry of Defense on November 30th began enforcing with fighter jets and warships an expanded ADIZ, which now covers a huge ocean expanse of the East China Sea, including the disputed oil rich Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, currently held by Japan.  China has drafted a South China Sea ADIZ that would include the Spratly/Nansha Islands, currently held by the Philippines.  It was rumored that a new ADIZ would be declared next week at the end of the CNPC and PPCC.

Blowing-up Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 loaded with Chinese citizens, during China’s most important leadership meeting; where they were about to militarily establish another Air Defense Identification Zone is consistent with Al Qaeda tradecraft.  Such a spectacular feat would demonstrate Al Qaeda has opened a new terrorist front against in China.

The author welcomes feedback @ chriss@chrissstreetandcompany.com
Chriss Street is teaching microeconomic at University of California, Irvine this spring from March 31 – June 8, 2014.