Our Continued Oil Vulnerability

A Saudi wing of al Qaeda, sometimes also referred to as the Bin Laden Brigade, has renewed calls for attacks on US oil suppliers throughout the world.   Reuters reports that the threat appeared on the organizations e-magazine, Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Holy War), and posted on an Islamist militant web site yesterday. 

The posting of Sawt al-Jihad, the first time in almost two years that the previously biweekly magazine has been released, may indicate a resurgence of Saudi al Qaeda.

"It is necessary to hit oil interests in all regions which serve the United States not just in the Middle East. The goal is to cut its supplies or reduce them through any means," the group said.

Saudi and US government authorities are taking the threat very seriously. The group is the same one that was behind the failed February 2006 car bomb attack on the world’s largest oil processing plant at Abqaiq (a.k.a. Buqayq) in eastern Saudi Arabia.  This attack was the first ever by al Qaeda on a Saudi oil refinery.

The group has also been suspected as being behind the al-Qaeda linked beheading of American contractor Paul Johnson.

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