Energy sector at risk from extremist attacks: US expert

SINGAPORE (AFP) - Energy facilities are the new targets of extremists who are well aware of the enormous economic damage that can arise from disruptions to oil and gas production, a US expert said Thursday.

"The industry that I think might get attacked is the energy industry," said Robert Taylor, professor and chair of the University of North Texas' department of criminal justice.

Blowing up energy targets are "new kinds" of attacks the world should prepare for, he said in a speech to a regional financial crime conference in Singapore.

A prime example was the economic havoc that resulted in the immediate aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on New York's World Trade Centre and elsewhere in the United States, said Taylor. About 3,000 people died in the attacks, blamed on the Al-Qaeda terror network.

Most recently, an attack last year on the Abqaiq oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil producer and exporter, saw crude prices shooting up almost immediately by two dollars in one day, he said.

"So they know they can cause significant amounts of economic kind of hardships," he said.

Turning to Southeast Asia, he said the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant group in Indonesia remained a significant threat despite the arrests of several of its leaders.

"This isn't a group that is just staying in one country," said Taylor, a consultant to the US Department of Justice.

"It's an active group linked significantly around the areas of Southeast Asia."

Authorities have blamed JI for a string of deadly bomb attacks against Western targets, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.