WI Al Qaeda targets…Saudi Arabia?!

whitecrow

Banned
Inspired by the recent Al Qaeda targets [blank] threads.

I don’t recall what Osama Bin Laden’s exact views of Saudi Arabian government were, but what if he insists that the Saudi’s are traitors to Islam for supplying the Great Satan with oil? So what if instead of carrying out 9/11, Al Qaeda performs a large-scale attack on Saudi oil fields?

What would be the impact on U.S.? On Saudi Arabia? On the Global Economy? How does that impact the view of Al Qaeda in Middle East and elsewhere?
 
I don’t recall what Osama Bin Laden’s exact views of Saudi Arabian government were, but what if he the Saudi’s as traitors to Islam for supplying the Great Satan with oil?
Apparently his hatred of the Great Satan had a lot to do with the Great Satan deploying troops to the Holy Land of Saudi Arabia sooo....

Yeah. Totally traitors to Islam in his view.
 

whitecrow

Banned
Apparently his hatred of the Great Satan had a lot to do with the Great Satan deploying troops to the Holy Land of Saudi Arabia sooo....

Yeah. Totally traitors to Islam in his view.

True, but did he ever promote attacks on Saudi government? Especially large-scale ones on par with 9/11?
 

Pangur

Donor
Then it should be easy to come up with a scenario where Al Qaeda carries out an even larger-scale attack(s), no?

It would not be impossible. Keep US forces in Saudi would be the POD you want. Perhaps keep 9/11 and the invasion of Afganistan. I am far from sure that they would attack the Saudi gov itself mind you. The links between the Saudi gov and AQ are really enough being the reason that I make that statement. Then again just maybe if you were to have some minor Saudi prince with major ambitions to be the ruler and he uses AQ to bring down the Saudi state you might have a plausible story.
 

Cook

Banned
The Khobar Towers bombing wasn’t exactly small. The issue could be one of targets and opportunity.
 

Pangur

Donor
I thought the Saudi government was the one sponsoring Wahabism in the first place.

I think that situation is more complicated than that. The sponsorship by the Saudi gov of Wahabism is a matter of record However the evidence would seem to show that there is support for by AQ by the Saudi gov, that the level and degree of support varies from out and out support to I guess tacit support. Hence why I suggested a minor Saudi prince pushing to over trow the state. This topic at a guess is talked out a lot at senior levels in the US and I would not be in the least surprised if there is no full agreement on the degree of complicity between the AQ and the Saudi gov
 
Have Bin Laden step on a mine in Afghanistan in the 90s and *Al Qaeda becomes a very different beast. OBL was considered a loon even in his own circles for focusing on attacking America. Islamist extremists have traditionally focused on purifying Islamic countries and are smart enough to know angering a hyperpower is an efficent way to get your arse shot off.

It would be like Hitler, instead of going for the Beer Hall Putsch, paying a 1000 Freikorps mercenaries to sail up the Neva and go Bay of Pigs on Leningrad. Sure you hate Bolshevism and if you're lucky you'll cause some local damage and shock everyone but its not a sensible way to set up the thousands year Reich.

Get a more 'normal' leader and expect attacks to focus on Islamic countries - very possibly including American targets in those countries but not many professional muhjahadeen are going to push for a 9/11 style attack.

However the problem there, from the Islamist POV anyway, is OBL was leader despite his idiotic goals because he had alot of money - he was less a mastermind than a paymaster - you suggest a hairbrained scheme attacking the Great Satan he chucks you $100,000. But he's hardly the only Islamist with a few million in the bank so...
 
Al-Queda is based around the idea of the jihad in the "near country," to remove non-islamic influences (Jahiliyyah). Because of a very narrow, strict interpretation of the Koran, they view any deviation as a corruption of Islam and any non-islamic influence as a corruption to be destroyed. (See Qutbism)

Osama Bin-Laden's beef with the United States really started just before our war with Iraq. There was a fear that Iraq would invade Saudi Arabia and OBL wanted to protect Saudi Arabia with troops who had fought in Afghanistan ("true" Muslims). Saudi Arabia decided to accept help from the United States instead.

While Saudi Arabia is a Wahhabi state, they aren't a perfect mesh with Al-Queda's ideas. A lot of individuals in SA might like or support AQ, but the government is kinda scared of them.
 
How much damage could AQ do to the Saudi oil fields and what impact would we be talking here? If you could knock their export/production capacity down by as little as 10% that would at the very minimum spell a brief recession; if they manage to do even more damage that could push things further to out and out global depression. It would also succeed in putting AQ on the top of everyone's must kill list.

There is one bit of silver lining out of all that: every country on earth is going to double down on renewable energy resources and energy independence pronto. An economic shock like that would make it impossible to ignore the economic problems that come with dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
 
How much damage could AQ do to the Saudi oil fields and what impact would we be talking here? If you could knock their export/production capacity down by as little as 10% that would at the very minimum spell a brief recession; if they manage to do even more damage that could push things further to out and out global depression. It would also succeed in putting AQ on the top of everyone's must kill list.

There is one bit of silver lining out of all that: every country on earth is going to double down on renewable energy resources and energy independence pronto. An economic shock like that would make it impossible to ignore the economic problems that come with dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

Eh they might do that, or they might send thousands of experts and millions of dollars to the Saudi state in order to get it up and running quickly. Not to much long term planning on the side of Western countries, bigger oil reserves yes, but not much long term planning unless you manage to cut the rate of oil by a year. The government might be willing to look at some long term projects, maybe a few nuclear power plants but sadly I'm betting TTL Fukushima will once again have the alarmists putting it down. This might give a boost to green energy dealers but I sincerely doubt it will help wean the West of Middle Eastern oil.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Eh they might do that, or they might send thousands of experts and millions of dollars to the Saudi state in order to get it up and running quickly. Not to much long term planning on the side of Western countries, bigger oil reserves yes, but not much long term planning unless you manage to cut the rate of oil by a year. The government might be willing to look at some long term projects, maybe a few nuclear power plants but sadly I'm betting TTL Fukushima will once again have the alarmists putting it down. This might give a boost to green energy dealers but I sincerely doubt it will help wean the West of Middle Eastern oil.

I doubt it would happen overnight but it would give greater urgency to the push to shift away from ME oil.

It also wouldn't surprise me if AQ decides to follow up on one successful attack on Saudi oil with another one. When you have hundreds of miles of pipelines, major ports, and the Straits of Hormuz to play with they could wreak a lot of havoc on the Saudi oil industry and the global economy.
 
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