Comments on: Al-Qaeda Claims Attack on Saudi Refinery

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:08:33 +0000

I suspect the thinking (!) is that by crippling oil output--and thus, oil income--AQAP believes it can undercut the legitimacy of the Al-Saud. That, in turn, would lead to their overthrow and replacement by AQAP, and they all live happily ever after.

This line of thought, though, misses a couple of important points: The Al-Saud have a history of survival, and AQAP has been severely crippled in its leadership. Just about any fool can make a bomb and put it in a car. It takes expertise, skill, and knowledge to get it next to the thing you want to blow up. Most of that has been taken out by Saudi anti-terror efforts over the past few years.

By going for a "spectacular," these guys missed softer targets that might have represented an even greater threat to stability. Good thing they really weren't "thinking."

By: DC Loser

DC Loser — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 15:24:29 +0000

While it didn't succeed, this was AQ's announcement that the Saudi oil infrastructure is now open game. Remember after 9/11 when Bin Laden said that AQ would not attack the oil infrastructure as that was the property of the Muslims. I guess now that AQ has no illusions of a quick demise of the Saui royal family so they will target their pocketbook as well as that of the west.

By: Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator

Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 14:57:28 +0000

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