It appears that the bombing craze is catching on, all over
the world, it is no longer only for Jihadi's.
Thanks for posting the reports.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1499952/posts
Alleged hijack bid nonstarter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | October 8, 2005 | Mark Davis
Posted on 10/10/2005 10:26:46 AM PDT by neverdem
Gwinnett police on Friday arrested a man they characterized as a
would-be hijacker who tried to commandeer a tractor-trailer idling in
traffic.
Unfortunately for him, said officers, he chose a truck whose driver was
armed.
Police said Cesar Iban Santoyo Pantija, 23, jumped into the cab of a
tractor-trailer traveling north on I-85. It was about 11:30 a.m., and
traffic had come to a stop just south of Indian Trail Lilburn Road,
police said.
http://www.petroleumworld.com/Lag101005.htm
TCS/John R. Bradley : Terror Pipeline
An unprecedented acknowledgement by the Saudi interior
ministry that a terrorist cell eliminated recently by the
security forces in Dammam was planning to attack key oil
installations, coupled with a near-simultaneous revelation that
four Iraqi insurgents had been engaged in a gun battle in
nearby Jubail, heightens fears that a call in December by
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for attacks on the
kingdom's oil infrastructure have struck a chord with
battle-hardened Saudi insurgents.
In his first direct message to Saudi militants, bin Laden's
main aim in the December address did not appear to be the
destruction of major installations, which would rob the Saudi
people of their primary means of financial income and turn
them completely against him and his cause.
Rather, it was acts of sabotage that would increase oil prices,
which he said should be $100 a barrel. In other words, the
goal was to punish the West, rather than the Al-Saud ruling
family. Saudi Arabia has more than a quarter of the world's
known oil reserves, and even an abortive attack on the Saudi
petroleum network would raise oil prices. Both Dammam and
Jubail are in the heart of the oil-rich Eastern Province.
The Al-Saud would stand to gain financially from the
immediate consequences of any such attack, as it has been
doing from the chaos in Iraq and its own domestic war on
terror, both of which have contributed to pushing oil prices to
unprecedented highs. A midyear financial report by the
Samba Financial Group, one of the largest and most profitable
private banks in the kingdom, said oil revenue this year is
already expected to reach $157 billion, a 48-percent increase
over 2004's oil revenue of $106 billion.
The claim by the Saudi interior ministry that the four Iraqi
insurgents in Jubail were "car thieves" seems preposterous,
even by the fictitious precedents set by official Saudi
government statements on terrorism-related matters. What
their arrest reveals, in any case, is that it is apparently as
easy for Iraqi insurgents to sneak into Saudi Arabia
undetected as it is for Saudis to make their way into Iraq.
The terrorism in the two countries is now clearly feeding off
each other. Even Saudi terrorism experts have acknowledged
that thousands of Saudi jihadis have snuck over to join the
insurgency in Iraq. Many will have been trained in urban
warfare, including instruction on how to sabotage oil pipelines.
As was the case after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan,
these Saudis are going to bring their terrorism back home
with them.
A confidential Interior Ministry document obtained by a
London-based Saudi dissident group, The Movement for
Islamic Reform in Arabia, apparently acknowledges that 200
Saudis may have already returned to the kingdom in the wake
of bin Laden's call.
Bin Laden's December tape was also of historic significance
because it effectively reversed a fatwa issued by Al-Qaeda in
Sudan in 1993 which, according to Middle East expert Amir
Taheri, had labeled oilfields in Muslim countries as off-limits
because their revenues would be needed to fund a
pan-Islamic empire. This shift in emphasis has not fallen on
deaf ears among Al-Qaeda operatives. According to the
Washington-based SITE Institute, which monitors Islamist
websites, an operative on a password-protected
Al-Qaeda-affiliated forum described on Aug 19 what the
author believed to be "conclusive weapons".
The Al-Qaeda member elaborated that to destroy the oil
pipelines in Saudi Arabia would have greater power than a
chemical weapon, would be easier to carry out than a car
bomb, and at the same time would create a "big economic
disaster for the American public". He noted, echoing Bin
Laden in December, that this tactic is a "prudent method" of
inflicting damage on the American economy.
The message gave eight reasons an operation targeting Saudi
Arabian oil pipelines is important. These included rising oil
prices, placing a strain on the Saudi-US relationship, and
spreading low morale among American soldiers in Iraq.
"When the American public realizes that the Iraqi war had
brought these economic crises, they will demand a prompt
withdrawal from Iraq," the poster predicted, in a chilling echo
of Internet statements calling for attacks in Spain before the
March 2004 general election, months before they were
actually carried out. The operative provided detailed maps
depicting the layout of the pipelines, before concluding: "Start
it, start it, Al-Qaeda men!"
Just weeks later, Saudi security forces were battling the cell
which the interior ministry said was planning to sabotage the
oil industry.
"We expect the worst from those who went to Iraq," Interior
Minister Prince Naif said in uncharacteristically frank remarks
published in July. "They will be worse [than those who have
already launched attacks], and we will be ready for them."
Whether or not that is true will largely determine Al-Qaeda's
future in Saudi Arabia. In the meantime, the issue of the
kingdom's largely unprotected vast oil pipeline network should
remain a cause of immense concern.
John R. Bradley has written extensively on Saudi and wider
Middle East issues for many publications. A former senior
editor at Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo and managing editor at
the Jeddah-based Arab News, he is the author of Saudi Arabia
Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (Palgrave-Macmillan,
June 2005). Petroleumworld not necessarily share these
views.
Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by
TCS
( techcentralstation.com), on 9/22/2005. Petroleumworld
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