Oil prices are set to surge after al-Qaeda gunmen killed at least 10 people and seized 50 hostages on Saturday during an indiscriminate rampage through the Saudi Arabian city of Khobar.
At least 10 people died in a crisis that ended about 25 hours after it began Saturday morning. Gunmen in military-style dress opened fire and exchanged shots with Saudi security forces at two oil industry compounds housing offices and employee apartments in Khobar, 400 kilometresnortheast of Riyadh. They fled
up the street, taking hostages in a high-rise in Oasis Residential Resorts.
A Saudi security official would not comment on the whereabouts or conditions of the hostages, saying only: ”It has ended. One has been arrested and two are in the process of being arrested — they are surrounded.” With reports of up to seven gunmen, it wasn’t clear if some of the gunmen had been killed.
Several Saudi newspapers reported on Sunday that the attackers threw at least one body from the building where they were holed up and had mutilated some of the bodies of those they killed
The South African foreign affairs department said one SA man had been killed and two wounded in the hostage drama. Spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said on Sunday the identity of the deceased could not yet be released.
The two wounded South Africans were being treated in a hospital. Mamoepa said he did not know what their condition was.
It was a day that left the oil city, in the east of the country, littered with bodies and bullet-riddled buildings and cars, the terrorists attacked four compounds housing foreign workers, seized American and Italian hostages and fought running battles through the streets.
Saudi security forces earlier had stormed the walled housing compound and surrounded the attackers on the sixth floor of a building. A security official said one attempt during the night to storm the building where the hostages were being held was abandoned after booby traps were discovered.
But just after sunrise, three security forces helicopters arrived and dropped off commandos. Moderate gunfire, heard sporadically overnight, rang out again. Within a few hours, the standoff was over.
A Saudi policeman said the militants used the hostages as human shields.
A statement purportedly from Saudi-born Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network was posted on Islamist internet sites claiming responsibility for the attack, the third on foreigners in less than a month
The attack sent shockwaves through a western world already facing high oil prices and now the prospect of worsening violence in a kingdom riven between its ruling royal family and jihadist groups determined to bring it down.
As Saudi security officials surveyed the horror, energy experts warned of the potential for a global fuel crisis triggered by instability in the country with the world’s largest reserves.The situation in Saudi Arabia pushed prices to $40 per 25-gallon barrel.
‘This is close to the nerve centre of the Saudi oil industry,’ said Yasser Elguindi, an analyst with Medley Global Advisers in New York. ‘It could have a devastating impact on the oil market when we reopen [on Tuesday] after the Memorial Day weekend.’
The US embassy advised all Americans to leave the increasingly troubled country, and the UK repeated its warning for Britons to avoid all but essential travel to Saudi Arabia.
Oil analysts in London and Washington warned of severe repercussions. Economists called the attack their worst nightmare come true.
It could send oil prices above $42 a barrel, pushing the average price of petrol in Britain beyond the £4-a-gallon barrier. The rise would renew fears of a world energy crisis not seen since the early Seventies. Prices have already risen amid fears Saudi Arabia would be unable to defend its oil industry from terrorists.
Repeated attacks could push oil prices above the economically devastating $50 a barrel, City experts warn.
The attack came only days after a senior Saudi al-Qaeda leader, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, unveiled a plan for an urban guerrilla war in the kingdom. Saudi security sources have admitted the destabilising influence of neighbouring Iraq, complaining of a steady traffic across the border in arms and other material to terrorist groups.
By Saturday al-Muqrin’s orders had already been put into practice. Four gunmen in military style dress stormed the Oasis where employees of Shell and the giant US firms Honeywell and General Electric are understood to live. Two cars with military markings drove in and gunmen inside them opened fire indiscriminately at residents. Windows of homes were shot out. Soon afterwards, hundreds of police encircled the compound as helicopters hovered overhead.
A Lebanese family, taken hostage and used as human shields, were released. Saudi security sources said an American, a Briton, an Egyptian, two Filipinos, an Indian and a Pakistani died in the attacks along with two Saudi civilians and seven security force members.
Militants killed five foreigners earlier this month in a similarly brazen attack on a petrochemical site in the Red Sea town of Yanbu. – AFP, Guardian Unlimited Â