…in a mid-December 2004
audiotape, bin Laden reversed his earlier promise to protect the Arab oil wealth. For the very first time, he called for attacks on the oil industry, framing them as part of al Qaeda’s “bleed-until-bankruptcy” strategy: "…*Focus your operations on it
[oil production], especially in
Iraq and the Gulf area, since this
[lack of oil] will cause them to die off *[on their own]…
The Washington, D.C.-based SITE Institute has
reported that a mid-August post on a password-protected internet forum affiliated with al Qaeda asserted that attacks on Saudi oil pipelines would have a greater effect on the United States than a chemical weapons attack by creating “a big economic disaster for the American public.”
