FBI officials in Boston categorically denied Friday claims by former Bush administration counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke that the FBI learned in late 1999 that al Qaeda terrorists were entering Boston harbor aboard liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers bound from Algeria.

“The FBI did a thorough investigation of LNG tankers coming into Boston [in 1999], and we concluded they were not being used to transport terrorists into Boston,” FBI Special Agent Gail Marcinkiewicz told NGI.

“We didn’t brief the [Boston] mayor that there was an al Qaeda cell here, because there wasn’t one,” said Kenneth Kaiser, special agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Boston office, in a Boston Globe article Friday. He told the newspaper the FBI was looking into the aborted “millennium” plot in 1999 to blow up Los Angeles International Airport when it found out that several people were being questioned in Boston for entering the U.S. as stowaways on LNG tankers from Algeria.

A Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was made up of members from the Boston police and the Massachusetts State Police, carried out an in-depth investigation and concluded that none of the stowaways were terrorists, Kaiser said.

Distrigas of Massachusetts, which operates the only LNG terminal in the Boston harbor area, would not confirm whether it knew of the FBI investigation at the time. It, however, welcomed the FBI’s denial of Clarke’s claims, said company spokeswoman Julie Vitek. “We certainly didn’t think that operatives had infiltrated LNG vessels in Boston.”

Clarke disclosed in his new tell-all book, Against All Enemies, that “al Qaeda operatives had been infiltrating Boston by coming in on LNG tankers from Algeria” prior to the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The revelations in the just-released book have sent shock waves through Boston.

Furthermore, Clarke wrote that on Sept. 11 top officials in the White House situation room feared that an attack was imminent on Boston through the Distrigas LNG terminal in Everett, MA, and warned the U.S. Coast Guard that Boston harbor may be an al Qaeda target, the Globe reported.

Distrigas flatly denied all of Clarke’s claims. “We have no reason to believe there is any truth to the comments about LNG contained in Mr. Clarke’s book,” Vitek told NGI.

“Since we began operation in 1971, all LNG ships have been physically boarded, inspected and cleared by the Coast Guard before entering the Port of Boston. In addition, there is a check for stowaways. On the rare occasions stowaways have attempted to enter Boston harbor in the past…the individuals were identified and apprehended well before vessels transited the [port],” according to a Distrigas statement.

“There have been no stowaway incidents of any kind involving an LNG tanker in Boston not only for several months leading up to 9/11, but years,” the company said.

Distrigas noted that an Algerian LNG tanker has not entered Boston harbor since May 4, 2001. Massachusetts Director of Public Safety Ed Flynn told the Globe the Coast Guard has barred Algerian tankers from the port since Sept. 11, but he said the reason for the action was never made clear.

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