Oil and Terrorism

Part of Energy Forum Study "The Global Energy Market: Comprehensive Strategies to Meet Geopolitical and Financial Risks: The G8, Energy Security, and Global Climate Issues"Oil and terrorism: as oil is one of the major resources if not the major resource of some of the dominant Muslim countries, it is critical for radical Islamic groups to both deny their own governments (against who they are rebelling) the revenues derived from oil, as well as create a sense of crisis in the world oil market that terrorist attacks can generate. Targets can be oil production facilities, oil pipelines, large tankers or even the offices of oil companies located in oil-producing countries. Although radical Islamic groups have carried out a number of paradigmatic attacks, they have yet to create the full-scale chaos that they need; nor, more critically for their goals, to turn the populations of target countries into sympathetic audiences for their struggle. This paper will examine the trajectory of attacks on oil targets by radical Islamic groups as well as the religious legal literature that backs these attacks up, and note what trends are likely for the future