Posted on 02/24/2006 8:01:19 AM PST by blam
Saudis 'foil oil facility attack'
Saudi security forces have foiled an apparent suicide car bomb attack on a major oil production facility in the eastern town of Abqaiq.
At least two cars carrying explosives were fired on at the plant, Saudi officials have said.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the attack is the first direct assault on Saudi oil production.
The al-Qaeda network on the Arabian Peninsula has long called for attacks on Saudi oil installations.
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said output at the facility, which handles about two-thirds of the country's oil production, was unaffected by the attack.
Oil security analysts have estimated that a serious attack on the facility could halve Saudi exports for up to a year.
On news of the attack, the price of crude oil for April delivery leapt as much as 3.4% to $62.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its biggest gain since 17 January.
'Gun battle'
Saudi officials said at least two cars packed with explosives tried to ram the gates of the facility in the eastern province of Dammam.
Security guards opened fire, causing at least one of the vehicles to explode.
Mr al-Nuaimi said the blast caused a "small fire", which was brought under control.
He denied earlier reports on al-Arabiya television that attacks had briefly stopped the flow of oil after a pipeline was damaged.
The cars carried the logo for Aramco, the state oil company.
The Associated Press news agency quoted an unnamed Saudi journalist as saying guards battled with two other militants outside the plant for two hours.
An oil industry expert told the BBC News website that Abqaiq was an extremely important gathering point for crude oil coming in from several large oil fields.
There the oil is processed to remove gas and render it less volatile.
Good on a-Q. The more alienation in the ME the better...
The attack failed so of course gas prices will go up.
The bombers didn't even have to blow anything up to get the price of oil to "skyrocket". Imagine that!
That doesn't sound right.
Maybe 120 seconds of intense gunfire and then 1 hour and 58 minutes of pinning the last guy(s) down and killing them?
It takes time to root out people when you don't want your own people killed. If they had good cover it may have taken that long for the saudi troops(or whatever)to work out a plan to take them without any losses. OTH, it may be BS:)
Saudi journalist as saying guards battled with two other militants outside the plant for two hours????
For 2 hours? 2 guys?
I heard this on a Fark.com thread and it sounded about right:
The price of oil is about as rational as the price of Beanie Babies in the 90's.
I don't think the Saudi's are that well-trained and the bombers know they'll be executed if they surrender... hence the 'two hours'.
Other reports say they were killed in the second car that was trying to ram the gate. No way they held off the guards for two hours.
I'll bet their car looks like swiss cheese.
"The six-hour operation began when the division's 2nd Brigade combat team approached the house and received small arms fire. The division subsequently employed multiple weapon systems to subdue the suspects who had barricaded themselves inside the house and continued to resist detention fiercely.
"Four persons were killed during that operation and were removed from the building and we have since confirmed that Uday and Qusay Hussein are among the dead," said Sanchez, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq.
probably still going on. I doubt it was a simple two truck bomb deal. I imagine the trucks were supposed to serve as the battering ram to open the gate to the refinery "fort".
I bet it does too:) Nothing like a machine gun to ruin your day trying to kill yourself for Allah!
"The cars carried the logo for Aramco, the state oil company."
The terrorists seem to have adopted as part of their modus operandi the adoption of the official logos of whatever target they are trying to attack.
For example, "The bombing of the shrine [one of the world's holiest Shiite shrines - the Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum in the northern town of Samarra], carried out by men wearing police commando uniforms": source - http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060222/ts_afp/iraq2ndlead
This is a separate issue, from what I gather, of infiltrating security forces. Rather, these are the terrorists choosing to camouflage themselves as official personnel to gain entrance.
Among citizens and domestic security personnel, this must be one more thing we need to be vigilant about. Does this technique, however, make it easier to infiltrate the enemy too, adopting similar tactics, or is this an asymmetrical advantage on their part?
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