It is clear that the attack in Khobar is part of a new pattern. These are not mainly excitatory terrorist activity (although dragging the dead Brit's body through the streets for a couple of miles before putting it on display, is clearly for political purposes). It is economic warfare.
The authorities will not be giving publicity to the rational strategy of the insurgents: it is to attack oil installations owned by foreign, especially US companies. The Saudi regime has said the investment of foreign capital is essential. It has had to send in helicopters with elite troops, but it is likely there will be substantial deaths of hostages as well as of the insurgents. It has captured one of the leaders and can torture him, and the Yanbu attack last month ended arguably in victory for the regime. But this is now a war on Saudi territory which the insurgents may not lose in the longer term. The lack of democratic consensus and the unemployment in Saudi Arabia are not good omens for the Saui Royal family. The truce with radical islamist within the country has broken down, which allowed them to organise for 9/11. The war is now at home. Although the islamic insurgents are almost certainly motivated by ideas of martyrdom and are willing to attack civilians with terroristic methods, the intention is more than to be politically excitatory. It is therefore arguable they should be called insurgents rather than terrorists, and we should consider that a guerrilla war has now broken out of insurgents within Saudi Arabia itself, one that will not be easily stamped out. Its vulnerable targets are economic. US and UK governments may well have to instruct all their civilian citizens to leave the country. This is a war for control of Saudi Arabian oil supplies. Judging from the response of the UK government to the bombing of the crucial capitalist institution of the Baltic Exchange by the IRA in the 1990's, the Saudi Arabian regime will have to compromise. US capital may lose direct ownership of Saudi Oil. That has enormous global strategic significance for the hegemony of US imperialism over the world capitalist economy. Especially since the Islamic insurgents can probably deny Iraqi oil to the west for several years to come. The insurgents are backed by substantial capital resources and infrastructure. This is a war of global dimensions of a new form between rival capitalisms. In terms of its footsoldiers it is a war between the haves and the Islamic have nots. The latter are more determined, and more likely to win, at least some concessions. Their leadership are shrewd enough clearly to be thinking strategically as well as tactically in terms of organisation. This is perhaps the third world war, of a form very different from the first and second. I suggest... Chris Burford London
