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By Fred Burton
Previously unpublicized segments of an al Qaeda videotape made in September hit the news media early Dec. 7, when the tape (featuring Ayman al-Zawahiri) was posted in its entirety on a jihadist Web site. The statements being aired struck an industrial nerve center: For the first time, a senior al Qaeda leader was heard to be calling specifically -- and offering ideological justification -- for strikes against energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region. Because the region's oil wealth is considered to be the patrimony of the Muslim world, it long has been believed that attacks of this sort would be anathema to al Qaeda and its long-term political goals in the region. The group's leaders, including Osama bin Laden, have made remarks about the need to halt the theft of Muslim oil many times in the past, but no one of al-Zawahiri's stature before has been known to discuss so directly the value of striking at energy targets in the Middle East.
The rationale for doing so is clear enough. As al-Zawahiri says in the tape: "I call on mujahideen to concentrate their attacks on Muslims' stolen oil, from which most of the revenues go to the enemies of Islam, while most of what they leave is seized by the thieves who rule our countries."
It is important to note the audience for this statement: Al-Zawahiri is not issuing a warning to the oil industry or the West, but rather is giving targeting guidance to al Qaeda's supporters in the Middle East. In other portions of the 40-minute videotape, he emphasizes that bin Laden is alive and continues to lead the jihadist war, claims credit in al Qaeda's name for the July 7 train bombings in London and rails against Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. It is, if you will, a motivational speech al-Zawahiri is making -- but the strategy he espouses is one with inherent risks.
Considering that oil is viewed by al Qaeda as the blessing of Allah upon Arabs and Muslims, the jihadist leadership does not seem to be in any danger of committing ideological cannibalism, provided attacks are staged in a way that cripples export infrastructure and the economies of specific countries -- rather than, for example, setting fire to oil wells -- since the oil would remain in Muslim hands under the strategy being urged. Al-Zawahiri's statement plays on long-standing divisions within the Arab world, where those from non-oil states might refer to the wealthy Gulf countries (and their frequently well-off citizens) as "Khaleejis" -- a word that technically means "from the Gulf" but has come to connote, in common slang, something more along the lines of "rich, lazy and spoiled." And any attacks that cause instability in countries with hated regimes, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are in al Qaeda's interest.
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