A new regional branch of al Qaeda infiltrated Pakistan's navy and tried to hijack a vessel earlier this month to launch rocket attacks on American ships in the Indian Ocean, Pakistani authorities said.

It was the first major offensive by the newly formed al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. The SITE Institute's monitoring service said the group's spokesman, Usama Mahmoud, on Twitter compared the Pakistani naval officers involved in the attempted hijacking to Nadal Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood.

Hasan was sentenced to death by a military court for the November 5, 2009, rampage, which authorities said the American-born Muslim carried out because he did not want to deploy to Afghanistan to fight other Muslims.

Mahmoud's tweet on Wednesday said the group sought to avenge the "bloodshed of Muslims" from Afghanistan to Syria as well as what it called U.S. control and superiority over "ours straits, our channels and our waters."

The September 6 hijacking attempt of the Pakastani navy vessel PNS Zulfiqar in Karachi ended after a fire fight in which three attackers were killed and seven others arrested, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told parliament on September 10. A naval officer was killed.

"We cannot rule out inside help in this attack because, without it, the miscreants could not breach security," Asif said.

According to SITE, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent claimed credit for the attack and even posted a picture and schematic of the Pakistani naval ship on Twitter.

"These mujahideen had taken control of the Pakistani ship, and they were advancing towards the American fleet when the Pakistani army stopped them," said the tweet quoted by SITE.

"As a result, the mujahideen, the lions of Allah and benefactors of the Ummah, sacrificed their lives for Allah, and the Pakistani soldiers spoiled their hereafter by giving up their lives in defense of the enemies of the Ummah the Americans," the group said on Twitter.

After the attack, three naval officials were arrested during a raid on the outskirts of the city of Quetta near the Afghan border. The officials said the suspects were trying to escape to Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in an effort to reclaim relevancy, announced the creation of al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, led by Asim Umar, which will include at least one faction of the Pakistan Taliban.

According to a translation by the SITE Institute, Mahmoud said the group's basic goals included jihad against America, supporting the Taliban and establishing a caliphate (implicitly rejecting the Caliphate claimed by ISIS leader Bakr al-Baghdadi).

(CNN)