Over thirteen years ago, at 2.25 pm on Friday, 24 February 2006, a three-vehicle al-Qaida attack group approached the Hamra gate to the Abqaiq oil processing plant 300 km east of the Saudi capital Riyadh. Choosing a Friday afternoon meant a particularly quiet time, but the gate was still guarded. The first vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser, carried three paramilitaries who attacked the guards while the second vehicle forced its way to the barriers before exploding, allowing the third vehicle to move towards the plant itself. (For the full story, see Jane’s Intelligence Review, May 2006, pp. 6-11.)
On Saturday morning, Abqaiq was attacked again – this time from the air, by drones and cruise missiles. The difference between the two attacks may explain why Donald Trump has been so cautious in his response to the more recent one.
In 2006 the official Saudi line was that the third vehicle exploded no nearer than 300 metres from core parts of the plant, though local sources spoke of some damage within the plant itself. Whatever the truth of this, the penetration of even the outer security of such a key facility was a matter of considerable concern. After all, it was hardly a new strategy, fitting in with a long-standing commitment to economic targeting by groups as diverse as the LTTE in Sri Lanka in the mid-1990s and the Provisional IRA in the 1992-97 campaign in the London area.
