WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- One of the pillars of al-Qaida's operational objectives in its war against the West is striking at targets of high economic value, the so-called bleed-until-bankruptcy plan first made public by Osama bin Laden in December 2004.
"One of the main causes for our enemies gaining hegemony over our country," bin Laden reasoned, "is their stealing of our oil; therefore (Islamic fighters) should make every effort ... to stop the greatest theft in history of the natural resources of both present and future generations, which is being carried out through collaboration between foreigners and (local) agents.
Al-Qaida has been careful to spare oil wells, which are seen as critical to the success of "the soon-to-be-established Islamic state, by Allah's Permission and Grace," concentrating instead on petroleum industry personnel, refining and transportation infrastructure. A new call for attacks on oil facilities appeared early this year in the online magazine Sawt al-Jihad (voice of the Jihad), issued by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, expanding the list of targeted countries to include such key U.S. suppliers as Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Al-Qaida has also called on Nigerian insurgents in the Niger Delta and "mujahideen" in the Caspian Sea region to take action against western oil interests.
These calls have not fallen on deaf ears. On Sept. 15, 2006, two attacks were mounted by al-Qaida affiliates in Yemen. One targeted the Canadian Nexen Petroleum Company's oil refinery in al-Dhabba while the other took aim at the U.S.-owned Hunt Oil Company refinery in Safer. Both sites are located in the eastern provinces of Marib and Hadramawt. In signature fashion, the attacks came 35 minutes apart. Both attacks were thwarted by security guards, but in the Marib case suicide bombers were just 100 yards from pipelines containing more than 15,000 cubic feet of gas and a control room for lines pumping crude oil. Al-Qaida's message after the incident warned: "Let the Americans and their allies among the worshippers of the cross and their apostate aides ... know that these operations are only the first spark and that what is coming is more severe and bitter."
More successful in its quest to disrupt oil markets was the al-Qaida "franchisee," the so-called al-Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC). On March 3 this group killed a Russian engineer and three Algerians as well as wounded five others traveling in a convoy at Hayoun, near Ain Defla in southern Algeria.
All were employees of the Russian company Stroytransgaz and were laying gas mains between Ain Defla and Tiaret, some 211 miles southwest of Algiers. Al-Qaida announced that this "modest conquest" was being dedicated to "our Muslim brothers in Chechnya ... victims of the criminal (Russian President Vladimir) Putin."
But no doubt an equally important objective was the oil industry. Three months ago this group killed one and injured nine in a similar attack on a bus carrying staff of Brown and Root Condor, a subsidiary of the Algerian oil company Sonatrach and of the U.S. construction firm Halliburton.
Why Yemen and why Algeria? Aside from the fact that they are good targets of opportunity and there are indigenous elements sympathetic to or directly aligned with al-Qaida, they offer a two-fold return on a rather modest investment.
The first, of course, is the undermining of Western economic interests; the second is destabilizing local "apostate" regimes. Yemen is not a particularly significant player in global energy markets, but the Yemeni government is highly dependent on oil revenues, which account for more than two-thirds of the country's GDP. A successful strike in Yemen would have further emboldened al-Qaida operatives in the ultimate target state -- Saudi Arabia. There, several attacks have thus far been repelled, including one against the world's largest oil production facility in Abqaiq (the failed attack led to a $2-a-barrel spike in world oil prices).
It would also have hurt Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh -- referred to by al-Qaida as the "devil" and urged to renounce democracy and his alliance with the "infidels" -- on the eve of the first contested presidential election in Yemen in more than a decade. There was also the issue of revenge, the leitmotif of many an al-Qaida operation. Saleh is held responsible for the 2002 killing by the CIA of Sheik Ali al-Harthi, the Qaida leader in Yemen.
Similar considerations apply in Algeria. Al-Qaida does its homework. According to one report, "A recent post on a password-protected Internet forum affiliated with al-Qaida asserted that attacks on Saudi oil pipelines would have a greater effect on the United States than a chemical weapons attack by creating 'a big economic disaster for the American public.'" This is borne out by studies suggesting that a moderate-to-severe attack on the Abqaiq facility could cut Saudi output by more than 4 million barrels a day for several months, pushing oil prices to more than $100 a barrel. The consequences for the United States and other western economies could be catastrophic. The mere threat to the security of oil supplies has already added to the cost of oil in a variety of ways. In the aftermath of the 2002 al-Qaida attack on a French supertanker off the coast of Yemen, insurers have tripled the premiums charged for supertankers passing through Yemeni waters. Rates for a typical supertanker that carries around 2 million barrels of oil have climbed $150,000 to $450,000 per trip. This charge is for the ship only; cargo is insured separately.
Al-Qaida may no longer possess the assets or enjoy the permissive environment to mount an attack on the scale of Sept. 11. But it understands that striking at the oil industry closer to home can have the dual effect of sending significant ripples through western economies while weakening enemy regimes in the Maghreb and Middle East whose legitimacy is inexorably linked to oil revenues.
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(Hrach Gregorian is president of the Washington-based Institute of World Affairs, a partner in the consulting firm Gettysburg Integrated Solutions and associate professor in the Graduate Program in Conflict Analysis at Royal Roads University in Victoria, Canada.)
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