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from stratfor.com
In the afternoon of Feb. 24, Saudi security forces opened fire on three
cars as they sped toward the Abqaiq oil collection and processing
facility in eastern Saudi Arabia. The cars, reportedly in the livery of
state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, were believed to be carrying
suicide bombers intent on attacking the facility. The attackers were
able to breach the facility's outer perimeter before security forces
fired at them. At least two of the cars exploded between the primary and
secondary security fences, and none was able to enter the facility,
according to Saudi officials.
The attack comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain
issued a Warden Message warning of possible militant attacks in the region, and three days after
the Australian government issued a similar travel advisory. An attack
coming soon after such warnings fits an observed pattern of
militant operations on the Arabian Peninsula.
The attack also comes amid repeated calls from al Qaeda's highest
echelon to target petroleum infrastructure. Osama bin Laden first
alluded, in passing, that oil-related targets should be attacked in his
audio message from December 2004. More recently, al Qaeda's
second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a direct call for attacks
against the oil industry in
a videotape released in December 2005. In that message, when al-Zawahiri
told jihadists to target the "Muslims' stolen oil," he was not warning
the oil industry or the West but rather was likely giving al Qaeda
supporters in the Middle East targeting guidance. The statement did not
say where the oil infrastructure attacks should take place; however, the
area where al Qaeda followers could most feasibly launch such attacks is
the Middle East.
Although the Feb. 24 attack was thwarted in its initial phase, it could
have followed several scenarios. The attempt at Abqaiq appears to have
used tactics that al Qaeda in Iraq has employed to attack fixed, heavily
defended targets such as the Iraqi Interior Ministry, the U.S. base at
Abu Ghraib and Baghdad's Palestine
Hotel, which houses Westerners near the Green
Zone. In those assaults, vehicle-borne suicide bombers were used in the
same way artillery is used in conventional warfare: to soften up
defenses before an assault. Of the three vehicles used at Abqaiq, the
first could have been designated to breach the perimeter, thereby making
a gap in the defenses to allow the other two vehicles to enter the
facility and attack more valuable targets inside.
An alternate scenario has all three vehicles charging the facility's
defenses simultaneously, possibly to disorient the defenders and create
gaps in the perimeter for a follow-on assault team armed with assault
rifles to enter the facility. Once inside, that team could have planted
satchel charges or other ordnance in critical areas in attempt to
disrupt the facility's operations. A third -- but least likely --
scenario has all three vehicles full of assault teams ready for a direct
attack against the facility.
In Iraq, this kind of attack is rarely successful, as the defenders have
a great advantage in a frontal assault, and the tactic has largely been
abandoned by the insurgents. Though the assault against the Abqaiq
facility could have caused serious damage, it is unlikely to have had a
significant, long-term effect on the facility's production capacity. The
facility itself covers about 1 square mile and has multiple levels of
security that prevent unauthorized personnel from getting within 1,000
yards of the facility itself.
Though the use of Aramco cars -- probably to get close enough to the
facility to attack without attracting undue attention -- shows a certain
degree of planning, the actual attack appears to have been poorly
executed. It occurred in the middle of the day, though a nighttime
attack would have more likely caught defenders off guard. Also, reports
that the cars were burned out rather than vaporized by explosions seem
to indicate that the vehicles carried insufficient explosives to cause
significant damage to the sprawling Abqaiq facility.
In the last attempted attack in Saudi Arabia, the December 2004 attack
against the Interior Ministry in Riyadh, multiple vehicle-borne suicide
bombers were used, but the that attack also failed. This shows that the
Saudis might have been effective in their campaign against al Qaeda on
the peninsula, but have not eliminated it.
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