The Telegraph: Opec under siege as Isil threatens world's oil lifeline
As the bloc’s 12 oil ministers meet in Vienna, the march of Isil jihadists in the Middle East is putting Iran and Saudi Arabia on a collision course with explosive consequences.
Thick black smoke rising from the Baiji oil refinery could be seen as a dirty smudge on the horizon as far away as Baghdad after fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) set fire to the enormous processing plant just over 100 miles north of the capital last week.
The decision to torch the refinery, which once produced around a third of Iraq’s domestic fuel supplies, was made as the insurgents prepared to pull out of Baiji, which they captured last June in a victory that sent shock waves across world oil markets.
A year on from the start of the siege and a shaky alliance of the Middle East’s major Arab powers, with the limited support of the reluctant US government, has failed to contain the expansion of Isil.
WNU Editor: From the Islamic State's point of view .... oil is the lifeline for its enemies .... therefore a legitimate target .... a realization that OPEC member are starting to realize.
7 comments:
I have spoken before on ISIS's geo-petro strategy, but there's something else that's been at the back of my mind, the defection of the Tajik security official. Rebellions, Insurgencies, or to some extant wars are won by and large by the mid level professionals. They by the very nature of their positions are usually pragmatic, so to go over they have to believe there is a good chance for success and much to gain. Add to this that these guys are the ones who have the real nuts and bolts knowledge of how their orgs work, has extensive contact in his old outfit, and for everyone we know about there's surely 50+ we don't, you get a good idea of possible internal dangers. This of course is added to what expertise he can add to say ISIS at a level that translates quickly to ground level operations.
Emperors have always known that a conspiracy of colonels was far more dangerous than that of one general.
I concur. It is interesting on how the Russian media is treating this defection .... they are more focused on the training that he received on Russian and not what he got in the U.S., and that this is a very dangerous development.
WNU,
Perhaps developments I thought were in the future for ex-Central Asian Soviet Republics are coming sooner than I had believed.
James .... I was told within a year. I should add that China is also becoming deeply worried .... they have some serious problems in their Muslim provinces.
Haven't there been several riots in these Central Asian countries a few years back, I remember hearing about some bad blood between the Tajiks and Uzbeks.
I'll look for some links.
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia/2014/07/uzbeks-kyrgyzstan-fear-new-communal-riots-20147672326456971.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/06/kyrgyzstan-violence-2010-201463016460195835.html
Sorry that was Uzbek and Kyrgyz violence, but still it shows that there are rifts in this part of the world that can be exploited.
Catholic Dragoon,
Shortly after Chechen Independence, Saudi Arabia started sending in the "Afghans" and the Mullah's to radicalize the area.
After the end of the Second Chechen War, for the most part, the jihadist groups were driven out of Chechnia, Dagestan, Intenguish, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazikistan,
Where they joined the Taliban in Afghanistan, the jihadi's of Pakistan's NWFP, or hid out in Iraq, Bosnia, Georgia.
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