Saudi Qaeda ideologue sets rules for oil war

DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda has advised followers to attack pipelines in Saudi Arabia and Iraq but to steer clear of oil wells because they are the lifeline of Muslim states, according to a two-year-old document recently posted on the Web.

The guidelines in al Qaeda’s war against “crusaders” and U.S.-allied governments were laid out in a manifesto written by Abdulaziz al-Enezi, arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2005 and described by the Saudis as a prominent ideologue of al Qaeda.

In the manifesto, which was recently posted on an Islamist Web site, Enezi said disrupting oil supplies was the best way to hurt the U.S. economy and destabilize the Saudi royal family.

Here’s a pretty clear rendition of Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula’s thinking toward attacks on oil facilities. It’s “Cut the flow of oil, but don’t damage the main infrastructure; we’ll need it later.” Read the whole piece.