[lbo-talk] Bush admin pressed Brits to arrest suspects

[Michael Pugliese]

http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2006/02/terrorists_atta.html
>...Daveed Gartenstein-Ross wrote an article, "Al Qaeda's Oil Weapon,"
in the "Weekly Standard" last year, a longer version of his September
27 CT Blog post. As he wrote, Saudi security forces found forged
documents that would have given terrorists access to key oil
facilities, following a shootout in the seaport of Ad-Dammam. The
article also shows al-Qaeda's evolution of thought to explicit calls
to attack these oil facilities to economically cripple the West. On
December 7, Daveed posted about Al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri's
call for attacks on oil facilities in a video. "I call on the holy
warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the
Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam."
Daveed reminds me that the December 2004 tape by Osama Bin Laden
includes this order (MEMRI translation): "Focus your operations on it
[oil production], especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this
[lack of oil] will cause them to die off [on their own]." An early
attack by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq was of an oil terminal there,
killing 3 Americans, but Evan Kohlmann tells me that he hasn't
targeted oil facilities in his strategy.

Former CIA officer Robert Baer describes this site as "the most
vulnerable point and most spectacular target in the Saudi oil system."
The huge facility processes around two-thirds of Saudi Arabia's oil
output and is the single largest oil processing facility in the world.
Oil industry experts on impact of successful attack: "If this has an
impact on exports and production, it would be close to one of the
things the industry fears the most" - "To have this happen in the
world's largest oil-producing nation is what's really got people
frightened." Oil markets are already touchy over Nigerian militants'
continued attacks on that country's energy sector, a topic of Doug
Farah's posts here and here.

Posted by Andrew Cochran at 09:17 AM | Permalink