The_Dunedan

I would have very little difficulty assigning blame for this to the ELF/ALF/Whale-Wars crowd. This is, after all, the bunch that regards setting SUV dealerships on fire as a valid way to protest SUV-induced air pollution (while forgetting the pollution created by burning the damned things), and releases captive-bred minks into the Engliosh countryside (where they aren't native and have proceeded to eat their way through an empire's worth of songbirds, amphibians, the local -native- weasels, etc.) Protesting deep-water oil drilling by causing a huge and catastrophic oil spill would be just about their speed: destructive, spiteful, expensive, ill-advised, and totally contrary to their stated goals.

There's just one small problem. If this incident was the result of an act of terrorism, it was a very well-planned operation, with excellent intelligence and control of information, executed by what would have been a -very- small number of very competent operatives who knew how to keep their mouths shut.

As anyone who's ever encountered any of the Earth First!/ELF/Whale-Wars crowd knows, these people are idiots. Morons. Most of them are too water-headed to even realise that burning an SUV causes pollution, worse pollution and more of it than the vehicle would have generated over its' entire operating life. Watch one episode of "Whale Wars" and you'll wonder how they even manage to tie their shoes in the morning, much less keep a ship running (especially since various people in charge of navigation don't trust and won't use technology...like compasses and maps...). And as for keeping quiet? For these idiots, acts of complete environmental stupidity (see burning SUVs) is something to brag about. They've never kept their mouths shut, ever, and have bragged about each of their custom-built environmental catastrophes as if it was a great blow for Mother Earth.

There is simply no way that bunch of stumblefucks, or anyone remotely close to them, carried this off. If it -was- manmade, you're looking for operational security and competence on the level of a national intelligence/counter-intelligence outfit (Mossad, MI-6, GIGN), military special operations forces, or one of the nastier private mercenary firms (doubt Xe/Blackwater could pull it off, but Executive Outcomes or Sandline Int'l would be a good bet if they're still around).

ALF just a'int got those kinda chops. They're vicious anti-human little shits with genocidal delusions, but they're not in the league you'd need to be to pull off an attack like this and get away clean.