Terror attacks on energy facilities rising-Germany
Source: Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau BERLIN, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Terrorist attacks on energy supply facilities worldwide aimed at hindering the delivery of gas and oil have risen sharply, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency said on Thursday. "In the past few years we have registered a significant increase in terrorist attacks on energy infrastructure and we must state that there have been qualitative changes," the head of Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Ernst Uhrlau, told a conference on energy security organised by the BND. He said that in the past, terrorist attacks on facilities used to be directed at disrupting regional energy supplies, such as those on Colombian oil pipelines. But this has changed, Uhrlau warned. "Today, they are increasingly focused on limiting the global supply of energy," he said. "Around three years ago the world energy supply came into the crosshairs of al Qaeda, thereby defining attack options for the Islamist terrorist network." The finite nature of energy resources is also deepening fears that problems of access to shrinking deposits of gas and oil will increasingly lead to conflicts. "Questions of energy security will fundamentally help determine the security agenda of the 21st century," Uhrlau said. While deposits of oil and gas are gradually depleted, the renaissance of nuclear energy worldwide, especially in the world's crisis regions, raised further security questions. New nuclear reactors "combined with optional or real nuclear weapons programmes can create a new international security agenda, something we've already had a taste of this week with North Korea", Uhrlau said. There are also political problems in the oil- and gas-producing countries, where scant attention is paid to comprehensive economic reforms, he said. "Due to the significantly increasing gas and oil income, many countries are neglecting reforms of those parts of the economy outside the energy sector and corruption is spreading," Uhrlau said. He cited internal conflicts in Nigeria, where clashes along the Niger Delta have temporarily limited the country's oil exports, triggering price rises on international oil markets. He also described Russia's decision to temporarily cut off supplies of gas to Ukraine earlier this year during a dispute over gas prices as a source of "great concern".
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