Tactics in Khobar

Great Debates
1

Reading the news about the terrorist attacks in Khobar over the weekend, I admit to being a bit puzzled as to the terrorist tactics. Some accounts claim they were allowed to escape in exchange for not killing 242 hostages. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/31/saudi.attack/index.html) There have also been denials.

Regardless, the fact remains that the terrorists did not indiscriminately kill their hostages, which seems out of the ordinary for these guys. Given previous examples of their “work”, I expected things to play out very quickly. And given their pride in killing and mutilating bodies, it seems odd that the chance to kill 242 Westerners would have been an even greater “victory” for them. So why go to all the trouble of breaking in/infiltrating and then not go through with it?

I can only come up with a few options:

  1. The terrorists were bluffing-- they ended up in a situation they weren’t expecting and couldn’t actually carry through on their threat. They took advantage of official uncertainty and decided to cut and run since they couldn’t do any more harm.

  2. The terrorists lost their nerve-- their leader was down and the rest of the crew had second thoughts. Given the chance to negotiate, they jumped at it.

  3. The terrorists thought this would be the greater propaganda victory-- a chance to show the world that they couldn’t be stopped, and that the army was incapable of capturing them. They killed who they could and stuck around to do it again.

  4. The terrorists have limited resources, and didn’t want to commit suicide unless absolutely necessary. Again, they killed who they could and managed to stick around to do it again.

  5. The terrorists weren’t allowed to escape, but did so during a rescue effort. The announcement in the CNN article above was an attempt to save face on the part of the SA government.

Obviously, something like #2 or #4 would be at least a bit of good news to take away from this. #1 or #5 would be less good.

Any thoughts?

2

The terrorists swifly entered Oil Central, killed a few people, then slinked out, allegedly with help from the Saudi Arabian government. That is a victory in itself, in that it sells the fact that, despite an offensive by America and the allies, al-Qaida can still kill any Westerner, anytime, anywhere. They can even negotiate the amount of people they kill, giving it some sort of eerie legitimacy.

3

In the history of middle-eastern hostage-taking, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about their not slaugtering all of them.

4

They did at least a little damage to the oil industry, so possibly mission accomplished there.

5

I’m thinking that the hostage-taking was not part of the plan. Perhaps the initial attack didn’t go off as expected and they found themselves swinging in the breeze.

One guy turns to the other…“Now what?”

“I know!!!” says another. “There’s a shitload of foreigners up the road! We’ll grab us some hostages and then…uh…wing it.”

He who fights and runs away, and all that…

As to how they escaped, or if they were allowed to by the crack Saudi anti-terrorism squad, well, stay tuned.

6

But what about in the context of the recent history of Al-Qaeda operations? Have they ever had a standoff that didn’t involve them being cornered in a hideout (like in Spain post-Madrid)? And why would they bother wearing explosive vests if they didn’t intend to use them?

7

That might lend some creedence to bizzwire’s theory. Explosive vests don’t have to be for suicide bombs, they seem like they’d be perfect for a hostage situation since you can’t wrestle them away from the attacker like a gun.