ISIS' next target for attack revealed - and tourists are at risk!

'We know [ISIS] have had ambitions to go off shore, we know they would like to have a maritime arm, just as Al Qaeda had a maritime arm.'

Vice Admiral Clive Johnstone, the UK's highest-ranking naval officer in NATO, released a statement yesterday warning that cruise ships in the Mediterranean were possible targets for ISIS terror attacks.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Johnstone warned there was a "horrible opportunity" that a "very high-quality weapons system" could have "extraordinary implications."

ISIS has moved into Libya to create a "retreat zone," which will serve as a safe haven from international air strikes in Syria and Iraq. With the terrorist presence in Libya, Johnstone admitted the groups has cast an "uncomfortable shadow" over the sea.

"NATO mustn't think the Mediterranean is just about immigration," Johnstone stated. "It is the spread along the North African seaboard, it is the Daesh entry into Libya, it is the Daesh control of Sirte and other places, which has an uncomfortable shadow over maritime trade and maritime access."

Though there is no current threat from ISIS to the shipping industry, Johnstone announced NATO has seen the group "grow and morph in such extraordinary ways," that it is impossible to predict what will happen next. 

"We know they have had ambitions to go off shore [sic], we know they would like to have a maritime arm, just as Al-Qaeda had a maritime arm," Johnstone said.

Unfortunately, the Syrian war coupled with the spread of ISIS attacks makes it difficult for NATO countries to "ascertain what threats are there. At the same time, we are tracking the spreads of really quite capable Korean, Chinese and Russian hardware, into bodies such as Hamas and Hexbollah and other places."

Though neither Korea, China nor Russia is currently targeting NATO or commercial shipping, Johnstone commented: "There is a horrible opportunity in the future that a misdirected, untargeted round of a very high-quality weapons system will just happen to target a cruise liner, or an oil platform, or a container ship. The eastern Mediterranean has started to become a competed space.

"We are not in any war, we are not in any period of tension, but there are quite a lot of actors with a say there and we have just got to make sure we can access that, with all the freedom of navigation in international law we want. Does it worry me, yes, quietly it does worry me a bit."
Specifically, Johnstone "worried" Russian submarines would come too close to Britain's waters and that lately NATO has witnessed more activity from Russian submarines than there was during the Cold War.

"Indeed we are seeing that level of activity but with a level of Russian capability that we haven't seen before," Johnstone admitted. "We were used to it in the Cold War playing a game of cat and mouse... but it is very different from the period of quiet submarine activity that perhaps we've seen in the past."

Nations "who in the past had prioritised to have submarines in the Gulf or eastern Mediterranean...[are] now looking to reinvest that capability" to protect British, French and American waters, Johnstone continued. 

Meanwhile, the United States is currently considering military action in Libya to prevent ISIS from expanding.

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