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92 comments on Suicide attack on Saudi refinery thwarted

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louGrinzo on February 25, 2006 - 10:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Bingo.  This is precisely why security at large, centralized facilities (whether related to energy or something else) is so insanely difficult.  With today's weapons technology all you need is one guy on the inside to cause almost limitless havoc with an installation.

And now that CBS is reporting that al Qaeda is claiming this attack was part of a series of operations, it seems that they've finally figured out the obvious way to hurt the West.  Even if they don't manage to do any real damage to the energy infrastructure, a steady drumbeat of failed attacks will still add a more or less permanent terrorism premium to the price of oil.

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odograph on February 25, 2006 - 12:29pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Kinda sad in the internet age that all they have to do is surf the news, columnists, and blogs.

I was reading somone .. John Robb? (link below), about a month ago talking about how a worldwide targeting of oil supplies would be harmful to the west.  And then it happens.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/

Jeez if any of you guys have good ideas, keep them to yourselves.

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beggar on February 25, 2006 - 5:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
My guess is that you are being sarcastic here....?

The importance of oil and all associated production and distribution infrastructure is a given.

Read "Blood and Oil" or similiar books to give an idea of how much this has been talked about just in relation to the US military, let alone private security considerations.

The "badguys" or "evil doers" know all about things like wiretapping and key infrastructure vulnerabilities.  They know a fair amount about other things like markets and about conducting their eery public relations campaign as well.

The notion that free discourse on sites such as this aids, abetts, or gives comfort to "the enemy" has either got to be sarcasm or a mistake of some sort, I think.

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odograph on February 26, 2006 - 9:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
With the "Jeez" line?  Not exactly sarcastic.

I really am thinking about this verus "native insurgent" campaigns from 100 or 150 years ago.  It really was different when the tribal fighters could not read the Times of London each week to see authors discuss "what would hurt us most."

Maybe a strategist would say that insurgents now have better intelligence of the opposition's political and economic conditions.

That's not something we are going to change (we aren't going to stop talking, or blocade Iraqi internet connections) ... but it does create a change.  We have info-saavy insurgents.

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Gets IT on February 25, 2006 - 6:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm of the opinion that knocking off a tanker would be much easier and cause 10X more ripples in the west.  I think they were not targeting the oil business in general, preferring a specific attack directed at the Saud's.  In fact, if the attack was successful, it would probably have had such a tremendous blowback on them from the LIPS, it might have damaged much of their support within the country.  And from other posts, at least some people think AQ may not be thinking about a "shoot to kill" policy if the target is Aramco, preferring rather to take it alive.  Looking at it from that perspective, and in combination with the hardness of the target, it seems to me that AQ's goal was nothing more than to send the Sauds a special delivery message; "Even after the Grand Crackdown, we are still active in the Kingdom.    
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92 comments on Suicide attack on Saudi refinery thwarted

Comments can no longer be added to this story.