Oil industry increasingly vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Oil is the engine which drives the region's economy. Increasingly, the energy industry is again under threat from global terrorism, with the focus largely on the turbulent Middle East. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's act of madness and revenge in Kuwait removed two million barrels of oil a day from production. They are regularly blowing up vital oil pipelines in a sustained campaign that security experts are worried could inspire terrorist attacks on key energy facilities in other countries and tankers carrying oil and gas around the world. Energy terrorism is not new in the Middle East, but the prospect of a major disruption in supplies from the region by Al Qaeda and its affiliates is the primary reason why oil prices have spiked recently to 20-year highs.