Pro-Qaeda Oil Workers a Sabotage Risk for Saudis

www.khilafah.com uploaded 15 Feb 2003 By JEFF GERTH

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The government of Saudi Arabia has increased security around its oil fields and processing centers after the discovery that employees of the state-owned oil company sympathetic to Al Qaeda were discussing sabotage plans late last summer, American and Saudi officials say. American intelligence officials discovered the conversations and alerted the Saudi authorities, who quickly arrested and interrogated the suspects, the officials added. The quiet thwarting of the potentially disastrous sabotage, disclosed in October by ABC News, is seen by officials here and in Washington as a model of cooperation for a relationship that has been under strain since the disclosure of the role of Saudis in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Still, the sabotage case and the response to it underscore the deep anxieties about the security of Saudi oil when a war with Iraq could make it more valuable, but also more vulnerable, than ever. Intelligence officials say the discovery of Qaeda sympathizers inside Saudi Aramco is part of a worrisome trend: Al Qaeda's leadership appears to be increasingly focused on economic targets, especially the oil industry. A few weeks after the sabotage suspects were detained, a French supertanker carrying oil from Saudi Arabia was attacked off the coast of Yemen, in a plot that American and Arab officials say was orchestrated by Al Qaeda. About the same time, a Qaeda videotape surfaced showing Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, calling for attacks on economic targets. The tanker attack had little impact on oil markets, but oil experts say any disruption of Saudi Arabia's oil production could be an economic disaster. Not only are the Saudis the world's largest oil suppliers, but they are the only ones with enough spare capacity to make up for large shortages from producers like Iraq or strike-plagued Venezuela. That is a role they have filled repeatedly in the last two decades. "To inflict economic damage, Al Qaeda doesn't have to hit the twin towers," said one senior intelligence official. "They can do it in their own backyard, where all the oil is." "Saudi Arabia's oil facilities are a target-rich environment," said one American intelligence official. He and other officials said the terror tactics that most worried them were computer-aided sabotage and the use of airplanes as missiles. During the Persian Gulf war 12 years ago, Iraq launched more than three dozen missiles into the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Some Saudis thought that was part of an unsuccessful effort to damage the Ras Tanura shipping and refining complex near the Persian Gulf, the gateway for most of the eight million barrels of oil that Saudi Arabia produces each day. "If you blew up Ras Tanura, you can't imagine the damage that would do to the United States," said an American oil executive active in the Middle East. Now, though, the concern has shifted somewhat. "The Saudis are more concerned about the threat from inside the country than from Iraq," said one Saudi oil executive who has been briefed on security measures. The ABC News report briefly noted that dozens of Saudi citizens had been arrested, but did not say how the discussions had been uncovered. Nor did it mention any of the suspects' connections to Saudi Aramco or Al Qaeda — information that has been closely held within the Saudi and American governments. Officials said the saboteurs' discussions had been more preliminary planning than a firm plot. They said some of the suspects had been released, though others remained in detention. Some are not Saudis, they said, while a small number worked for Saudi Aramco. American officials say they believe that Qaeda sympathizers are sprinkled throughout the Saudi government. The nexus of terrorism, oil and Saudi Arabia dates back three decades. In 1973 terrorists attacked oil tanks in Lebanon owned by Aramco, the joint venture between American oil companies and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis took control of the company in the 1980's and renamed it Saudi Aramco. Today it is the world's largest oil company, with 55,000 workers, most of them Saudis. During the 1980's, according to a former American intelligence official, the United States government did a secret study of the vulnerability of Aramco's installation at Abqaiq, the world's largest oil and gas processing center. Investigators found that the chemical reactions from a well-placed explosion could cripple Abqaiq's gas-oil separation plant for months, the former official said. Today Saudi Aramco has 58 separation plants, which are crucial to the transportation of oil. Saudi Aramco officials said they were unaware of the American study but had further tightened safeguards at their sites, which are guarded by a vast industrial security force. "Our people are well prepared security-wise," said Abdullah al-Saif, a senior vice president of Saudi Aramco. A senior Bush administration official agreed. "The Saudis deserve credit for having a very robust surveillance and detection system on their oil assets," the official said. Ali al-Naimi, the company chairman and Saudi Arabia's minister of petroleum and natural resources, said separation plants could be secured quickly and shut down in an emergency. But he added that "terminals and power systems could be a problem." One indication of the heightened security is an Interior Ministry directive, issued several weeks after the sabotage case came to light, instructing Saudi Aramco's security force to post "no photos allowed" signs at oil installations. During a recent visit to the country's newest and most sophisticated oil installation, at Shaybah in the red-duned desert known as the Empty Quarter, security was tight, especially at the main separation plant. Workers are flown in and out on company planes. Despite the remoteness of the site, buildings are surrounded by fences, their entrances watched by several guards. A control room was manned by only a handful of technical employees. Increasingly, Saudi Aramco's oil installations, including its separation plants, are run by computers. With a new war looming, American officials say Qaeda sympathizers do not represent the only potential threat to the Saudi oil supply. They also worry about the large Shiite Muslim population in the Eastern Province. Shiites make up 10 percent of Saudi Arabia's population and are generally treated as second-class citizens by the country's Sunni Muslim establishment. In 1996, Shiite terrorists planted the truck bomb that killed 19 American Air Force personnel at the Khobar Towers housing complex near Dhahran, home of Saudi Aramco. Mr. Saif, the Saudi Aramco executive, said the treatment of Shiites at the company was "not an issue." But American oil executives and government officials said the Saudi oil company tried to keep Shiites out of sensitive jobs like computer operations. Thomas Stauffer, a Washington lawyer who has worked for Saudi Aramco, said a United States-led war against Iraq could provoke anti-American and anti-Israeli feelings among Saudi Aramco workers, making it harder to produce extra oil. "A strike or a shutdown is a very real risk if the U.S. goes to war in Iraq," Mr. Stauffer said, adding that "Aramco's staff is well aware of the risk." American officials say their security concerns have been heightened by a spontaneous and rowdy demonstration by 6,000 to 10,000 people last spring outside the American Consulate in Dhahran, near the oil fields. Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb, a Saudi dissident who says he went on Al Jazeera television to report on the demonstration, said, "Shiite oppression and discrimination is not as bad as it used to be, because the 1979 revolution in Iran gave a lot of hope." But he said he was announcing the formation of an activist group, Human Rights First, because the Saudi authorities continued to block free expression.

Source:  New York Times