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Haven't we been down this tunnel road before?

Tunnels of weapons and images
By Olivier Guitta June 1, 2004

Recently, Israel had to launch a preventive military offensive in Gaza. The goal was to destroy the tunnels used by Palestinian terrorists to smuggle arms, explosives, bombs, and very possibly also Katyusha rockets from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. Israel had no choice to act because of the growing threat that terrorists would use their long-range missiles against cities deep inside Israel. The situation in Rafah is very representative of where the peace process is stuck: the physical tunnels, added to the "tunnel of images," are pushing us farther away from any resolution of the conflict.

Since the start of the Second Intifada, or rather Arafat's War, in September 2000, Palestinian terrorists have been building tunnels under civilians' houses in order to smuggle all kind of weaponry. Rafah, a refugee camp administered by the United Nations alongside the Egyptian border, has been the focus point of this activity. Some of the civilians accepted money in exchange for building these tunnels in their houses, some were just relatives of the terrorists while others were forced to accept the digging as fact.

http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=ViewsPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWho=Article%5El3696&enZone=Views&enVersion=0

This is an excerpt see link for rest...

AL-QAEDA'S Big Mistake
Insight on the News - Washington,DC,USA
Over the last decade, the ruthless terrorists of al-Qaeda have waged one
of the most brilliant political and military campaigns of modern times.
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The weekend attack at Khobar, in which 22 people were killed, produced another Website posting, in which the self-proclaimed al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz al-Miqrin, claimed responsibility.

"Our heroic fighters were able, by the grace of God, to raid the locations of the occupying American oil companies ... which are plundering the Muslims' resources," it said. Al-Miqrin also condemned the Saudi government for "supplying the United States with oil for the cheapest prices, according to their master's wish, so that their economy does not collapse."

In another posting, al-Miqrin called on other young jihadis, not affiliated with al-Qaeda, to join the campaign. They need only "create a cell that prepares itself and chooses targets approved by God and then carry out the operation," the statement by al-Miqrin says. He directed them to training lessons on military strikes in the group's Web postings.

Al-Miqrin also praised the Yanbu attack. "The Yanbu cell which this month carried out the daring and successful operation is one of the best examples. They hit the enemy in an important economic facility which had a big effect on world oil prices which continues to this day." (Al-Miqrin may well be right. The Qatari oil minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya, told reporters at last week's OPEC meeting in Beirut: "I can say that the equivalent of $8 of a barrel price is the result of the factor of fear.")

This decision to attack the Saudi state through its oil industry may be just the break for which President George Bush and his allies have been hoping. The first result of the attacks by the Brigade of the Two Holy Mosques was to force the Saudi regime itself to come off the fence, begin serious intelligence cooperation and exchange with the Americans, and to mount their own counterinsurgency campaign inside their own country as a matter of self-preservation.

Moreover, America's shrinking and disaffected allies are themselves dependent on imported oil. However reluctant to back the Bush administration, the European leaders that Bush meets this month in his intense burst of diplomacy in Paris, Normandy, Ireland and at the NASTO summit in Istanbul will all be worrying about the oil price, and the stability of oil supplies. If anything can rally the Europeans to a sense of common interest with the Americans, it will be the common concern over oil.

And the Europeans are not the only ones worried. China, which has just replaced Japan as the world's second leading importer of oil (after the United States), is getting desperately concerned. For once, China can perceive a vital common interest with the Americans. This time, al-Qaeda may have gone too far, and given President Bush the opportunity to change the topic from Iraq and to portray the war on terrorism as a matter of economic survival for the civilized world.

If anything can shift the focus of worried governments from American blunderings and the mess in Iraq to the real threat against the Saudi oil supplies, it is the actions of the Brigade of the Two Holy Mosques. This time, even the most pacifist and anti-American Europeans may be able to perceive whose side they are on.

http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/05/28/Commentary/CommentaryalQaedas.Big.Mistake-683844.shtml