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Terrorists target saudi oil industry { May 31 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.iht.com/articles/522550.htmlhttp://www.iht.com/articles/522550.html
Target: Saudi oil industry
Neil MacFarquhar/NYT The New York Times
Monday, May 31, 2004
Rampage tied to Qaeda leaves 22 dead, mostly foreigners
CAIRO Saudi commandos Sunday stormed a residential compound in the oil-producing region of eastern Saudi Arabia, freeing dozens of Westerners and other foreigners held hostage for 25 hours by armed militants.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement read on Saudi television that 22 people, most of them foreigners, were killed in the siege and rescue operation at the Oasis Residential Resorts compound in Khobar, a luxury complex of 220 to 250 villas and apartments that is home to many senior Western company executives, including those from Shell, Honeywell and General Electric.
The hostage-taking was the second major attack on the Saudi oil industry in less than a month. A similar attack occurred on May 1 on the western Saudi town of Yanbu. Both attacks struck at the core of the relationship between the West and the Saudi kingdom and seemed clearly intended to start an exodus of the thousands of workers on whom Saudi Arabia depends to keep its oil industry running.
The militants killed nine foreigners overnight Saturday, according to security forces and Western diplomats. "The gunmen were going through the compound and either shooting people or letting them go, they shot non-Muslims and they let the Muslims go," said a Western diplomat.
Just after dawn on Sunday, Saudi troops leaped from several helicopters onto the roof of a building to begin the rescue operation, and combed the sprawling Oasis compound for the attackers.
The statement read on television said one of the assailants was wounded and captured by Saudi forces but three others, one of them wounded, escaped.
The dead included eight Indians, three Filipinos, three Saudis, two Sri Lankans, an American, a Briton, an Italian, a Swede, a South African and an Egyptian, according to the statement.
It said that 25 people of different nationalities were wounded in the 25-hour assault, and added that security forces had evacuated 242 people of different nationalities from a residential complex and a hotel that were targets of the militants.
The attack was expected to send tremors through the world oil markets, but senior Saudi officials sought to reassure the world that oil production was unaffected because residential areas, rather than production facilities, had been the targets. Saudi and other analysts argued that the militants' decision to take aim at residential and office complexes seemed to underscore the weakness of the group and its inability to hit anything important. An announcement posted on an Islamic Web site contended that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attack, news agencies reported. As with all such claims, however, it was impossible to immediately verify. Still, the attack bore certain hallmarks of the group, including extensive planning and a choice of targets likely to have a sensational impact. In recent weeks, the ostensible operations director for Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, has posted a series of announcements that amount to a battle plan for militants seeking to overthrow the ruling Saud dynasty. A statement posted on the Web site and signed by the "Al Qaeda network in the Arabian Peninsula" vowed to rid the peninsula of "infidels."
Most of the oil production and the American and other Western technicians who keep it flowing are based in and around the urban centers of Khobar, Dammam and Dhahran, clustered together near the shores of the Gulf, just across from Bahrain. At a time of skyrocketing oil prices, the area has become even more crucial as much of the excess capacity Saudi Arabia has said it will bring into production after an OPEC meeting next Thursday in an effort to bring prices down runs through the production centers grouped in the Eastern Province.
The latest attack began shortly after dawn on Saturday when gunmen apparently scaled an unused, unguarded gate to gain entrance to three complexes used largely by Americans and other foreigners. They had escaped suspicion initially by wearing the khaki camouflage uniforms of the Saudi National Guard, which is responsible for protecting residential compounds where foreigners mostly live. The attackers then opened fire on three complexes used largely by Americans and other foreigners. They then went door to door pulling residents out of their homes, said two Americans who live in Khobar and were contacted by telephone. An American executive living in the compound, Owen Reed, described how his wife, Diane, sought protection in a back room of their house after hearing gunfire. When the gunshots seemed to be hammering through the front door, she ran out through the back garden. She fled down the street toward a guard post near their house, but she was hit in the leg by gunfire just as she reached it. She was pulled out of the line of fire by a security guard. Later in the evening, Reed said his wife was in stable condition after undergoing surgery in a local hospital. After the May 1 attack against the petrochemical complex in Yanbu, on the Red Sea coast of the kingdom, oil prices jumped. Analysts have noted, however, that it would take an assault on a production facility itself to send real tremors through the market. A Western analyst said that militants surely saw the success they had in shutting down the Yanbu project and decided to carry out more of the same, especially since the Saudi Interior Ministry has repeatedly been able to track down and defuse the kinds of booby-trapped cars that have been used several times against residential compounds in Riyadh starting a year ago. More than 90 people have been killed in the past year in Saudi Arabia in on terror attacks or shoot-outs with militants. "This is easier than a vehicle bomb that can be discovered," said the analyst. "There are thousands of targets you can choose for this type of assault. It is very, very hard to defend against." About 15,000 Americans and 10,000 Britons are believed to live in the Eastern Province, the largest concentration of foreigners in the country.
Some expatriates predicted that the latest shooting would set off an exodus of foreign families.
"With this going on, especially the people who are new will think that it is time to go," said a longtime resident who works for Saudi Aramco, the national oil company. "Forty families had already decided to go next month before this happened. That is a lot." By Saturday night, some families were already packing up and driving over the causeway leading to Bahrain, residents said.
Radsch from Washington and Kirk Semple from New York.
Copyright © 2004 The International Herald Tribune
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