In an effort to secure its most precious natural resource, Saudi Arabia announced in late July 2007 it plans to create a new arm of the Saudi Royal Armed Forces Special Forces division called the “Facilities Security Force.” The Facilities Security Force will be specially trained by a US defense contractor to guard the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and pipelines. Saudi Arabian authorities have recruited 5,000 individuals to take part in the first training class, and set a two-year interim training target of 8,000 to 10,000 security personnel. The ultimate target size of the Facilities Security Force is set at 35,000.
Implementation and use of such a security force will be a positive step in ensuring the safety and security of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure into the long-term.
Threat to Saudi Arabian Oil Facilities
Attacks and planned attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities and assets are well documented. Such attacks include:
• The May 1, 2004 attack in which four unidentified gunmen opened fire at an Exxon Mobil and Saudi SABIC petrochemical plant; killing six and injuring at least two workers .
• The February 24, 2006 two car bomb attack on Abqaiq oil processing facility, in which two guards intercepted the bombers, who detonated their bombs at the security gate after being detected before reaching their target .
The threat to Saudi Arabian oil became more acute following calls by al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri to target oil facilities:
• On December 22, 2004, Osama bin Laden posted an audiotape on a jihadist website calling on mujahideen to attack oil infrastructures in the Arabian Peninsula. In the tape he recommended the attacks focus on targeting refineries and exporting capabilities.
• In a video aired by al-Jazeera on February 26, 2006, Zawahiri called on, “the mujahideen to concentrate their attacks on Muslims’ stolen oil, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam while most of what they leave is seized by the thieves who rule our countries.”
• On February 17, 2007, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called for attacks on US oil suppliers internationally. The statement emphasized that targets should not be limited to targets in the Middle East; Canada, Venezuela, and Mexico were listed as possible targeting locations (Previous Report).
The Saudi Arabian government reported that it has thwarted 180 ‘terrorist’ operations by al-Qaeda since 2003. Most recently, a May 2007 security crackdown yielded the arrest of 172 terror suspects—along with weapons and money caches—who were said to be plotting an attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities (Previous Report).
Sound Investment
Efforts to secure Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure are a sound investment. Nine million barrels of oil per day are pumped from Saudi Arabian wells. The oil is then transported through a series of oil pipelines to oil refineries or transit points. Though the pipelines are guarded through the utilization of satellite surveillance and seismic sensors, the broad impact a successfully implemented attack would wreak on the global oil market continues to inspire would be attackers. Therefore, the threat to Saudi Arabian oil facilities will remain elevated in the near to long-term.
Stretched thin and faced with a daunting task, Saudi Arabian security forces are in a daily war to secure the kingdom from the threat of terrorist attacks. The new Facilities Security Force should serve to lighten the load of other divisions of the Interior Ministry, freeing them to focus on targeting terrorist cells and financial networks, while creating a professional cadre of troops to guard the kingdom’s most valuable natural resource.
