Once in Saudi Arabia, he participated in the destruction
of a major seawater pipeline which feeds the water injections
of the Ghawar oil pipeline, one of Saudi Arabia’s
10,000 miles of petroleum arteries. Since over 7,000,000
barrels of seawater are injected into oil fields daily
to maintain positive pressure, the loss of a major source
of water caused the oil pipeline to be shut down. This
cost the Saudi government millions of dollars of lost
revenue. But it had another benefit, a technique used
often to finance Al Qaeda operations: because Moustapha
knew in advance the oil pipeline would be closed and the
oil companies involved would be affected, he alerted Al
Qaeda’s financial group which has access to the global
stock markets; they were able to make millions of dollars
in profits by taking a ‘short’ position on the
oil company stocks…money to be used for future operations.
Moustapha had assembled a team from the Shi’ite
minority of Saudi Arabia who worked in the eastern oil
fields but who sought to destroy the country so that
the Shi’ites in Iran could dominate the Middle
East’s petroleum supplies. As they crawled to the
top of the sand dune, Moustapha looked through his night
vision binoculars for any security guards. He pulled
his binoculars down fast when he saw two guards standing
less than 100 feet from them. He quickly put his finger
to his lips to signal his companions to be quiet, and
pointed to where the guards were standing.
‘They shouldn’t be here,’ he thought
to himself, although he knew there was never any certainty
where or when a Saudi security patrol would show up.
‘We can’t go back and move somewhere else.
The guards might see us. Anyway, wherever we might go
we could encounter the same problem. Better to deal
with it here.’
Moustapha gestured to one of his companions to crawl
closer to him. As soon as they were lying next to each
other, Moustapha pointed to the guards and whispered
to him, “Take Ibrahim and quietly crawl to the
other side of them. And relax,” Moustapha said.
“Just do what I say, and do it slowly, even if
it takes you half an hour. We can’t get caught!”
He paused. “When you get there,” he spoke
very slowly and quietly, “make a small noise to
attract their attention. Now go! And quietly.”
Moustapha watched as his fellow saboteur crawled over
to Ibrahim and explained the situation. He observed
them carefully as they began a long, slow crawl to the
other side of the guards.
After 20 minutes Moustapha saw them reaching their
destination. He signaled to his other companion to take
out his knife and follow him as he began to creep slowly
toward the guards, a few inches at a time.
When they were within 30 feet of the guards, they heard
a noise. One of the guards shouted, “Who’s
there?”
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