Iraq isn't the only place where conflict is raging. Saudi Arabia is also a battlefield right now. The oil infrastructure will be a target, like it was today.
Gunmen opened fire Saturday at an oil refinery co-owned by Exxon Mobil and the Saudi company SABIC in northwestern Saudi Arabia, killing at least three Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Saudi, company officials and diplomats said. Interior Ministry officials said three attackers also were killed.The attack killed at least three American engineers working for oil services company ABB, according to company spokesman Bjorn Edlund, based in Zurich, Switzerland.
The European diplomats said two Britons, an Australian and a member of the Saudi national guard also were killed. A police captain was seriously wounded, they said on condition of anonymity.
There was another gunbattle earlier this week.
Saudi security forces raided a building in the Red Sea port of Jeddah Friday in a continuing crackdown on suspected insurgents. Five people died and three were injured in the confrontation which began Thursday night as police, tipped to their whereabouts, surrounded a building under construction in al-Safa, northeast of Jeddah, according to an Interior Ministry source.Three of the militants were killed in an exchange of gunfire Thursday night and police began lobbing tear gas into the building Friday morning to root out the rest. Police said two more men died. Unconfirmed reports said one of the dead may have blown himself up.
In fact, Saudi authorities say massive counter-terrorism operations have been underway.
Saudi security forces have foiled "dozens" of planned major attacks in the kingdom while a group of suspected terrorists hiding out northwest of Riyadh are still being pursued, the Saudi Interior Minister said Thursday.
A car bomb attack earlier in April struck at the heart of the Saudi security forces.
Two car bombs blasted the Saudi national police headquarters Wednesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 125 others, police said. Facades were torn off buildings near the explosions, revealing rooms still ablaze. Cars were smashed by debris. Clouds of dust and black smoke rose from the building and settled over the neighborhood.
I guess we're in this together, like it or not.
Posted by Alan at May 1, 2004 07:17 AM