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Africa: North
Al-Qaeda plans to divide and conquer Africa
2005-02-01
The world has heard the sound of the African oil boom. So has al-Qaeda. The continent has more than 75.4 billion barrels of proven reserves, edging toward 10 percent of the world's total. Five large producers - Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Angola -top the list of African oil exporting countries. Lesser producers, such as Chad, are also in the mix. Sub-Sahara Africa supplies as much oil to the United States as Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda sees Africa as a prize well worth going after. It is a graveyard of failed states, of corrupt governments whose power seldom goes much beyond capital city shantytowns and of areas of Muslim radicalism. The problems of the region are opportunities for Al-Qaeda.

At the same time, al-Qaeda strategic moves in Africa serve its larger purpose of attacking Western economies. In 2002, Ubeid al-Qurashi, a pseudonym of an Osama bin Laden lieutenant, wrote an article saying that Western economies cannot stand high oil prices. One way to strike fear into the West, he wrote, is by repeated attacks on oil installations or on tankers. After the attack on the French tanker Limburg, in October 2002, the al-Qaeda political bureau described the attack as not merely an attack on a tanker. Rather, al-Qaeda said, it was an attack against international transport lines and an attack on the West' s commercial lifeline, petroleum. Terror and attacks on Western economies are one part of al-Qaeda ' s grand plan. A second part counts on the vulnerabilities in the continent that will allow al-Qaeda to establish radical Islamism in one state after another. Nigeria is a case in point. The tenth largest producer in the world, 95 percent of Nigeria's foreign exchange comes from oil. It has close to 25 billion barrels of proven reserves, and major explorations are underway for more.
Posted by:Dan Darling

#5  Kinda blows the entire "it's because we're in Muslim territory" argument to bits, though, doesn't it? Do you think we'll hear an aplogoy from Teddy or John "I'm a Vietnam Veteran" Kerry? Me, either.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2005-02-01 2:40:17 PM  

#4  Tumultuous welcome awaits Jacques Chirac in Dakar...
Posted by: Seafarious   2005-02-01 12:02:02 PM  

#3  That's right, Steve. Africa is a big place; look at the troubles the US and USSR had trying to "manage" their proxies during the Cold War. African Tin-pot Dictators™ are out for themselves and don't want al-Qaeda f*cking things up for them - there's money to be stolen!
Posted by: Spot   2005-02-01 10:05:17 AM  

#2  If the African thugs feel threatened, they're not gonna wait for the UN to come to their rescue. They've forgotten more about terror than al-Qaeda ever knew, and they're not shy about killing a few thousand innocents to get their point across.
Posted by: Steve   2005-02-01 8:28:15 AM  

#1  Omigowd, it IS all about the oil!!!!!
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2005-02-01 6:37:42 AM  

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