Bloomberg reports Saudi authorities killed 2 of their most wanted in a shootout in Riyadh as they hunt for the people who drove Aramco-labled cars up to the Abqaiq oil processing facility. Mohammed Saleh al-Ghaith, 23 years old, and Abdullah Abdulaziz al-Tuaijri, 21 years old, were killed along with 3 others.
Reuters reports that Al Qaeda issued a statement naming the two as martyrs and pledging to carry out more operations against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia:
The statement, signed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said: "We renew our vow to crush the forces of the crusaders and the tyrants and to stop the theft of the wealth of the Muslims."
In Iran's Khuzestan province, a southwestern province which borders Iraq and the Persian Gulf and is a center of Iran's oil production (90% of their oil production), two percussion grenades went off in the bathrooms of the governor's offices in Abadan and Dezful within ten minutes of each other. (IRNA, BBC) No injuries were reported.
And, here's something I haven't been following - on January 24, in Ahvaz, the capital of the Khuzestan province, twin blasts hit a bank and a government building leaving six people dead and dozens injured. Responsibility for the Ahvaz blast was claimed by a group called "Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz." That's not the latest or the only terror that's been going on there. On 02/20 a "noise bomb" exploded, blowing out windows, but injuring no one. On 10/15/2005 two bombs exploded an IT center, killing 6, wounding 50. 06/12/2005 three bombs exploded concurrently near public facilities, killing 8, wounding dozens. Seems like Iran's got it's own problems with retroactive Arabs going after oil-rich areas. Coordinated explosions is an identifying hallmark of al Qaeda. The Iranian government has implied that the British forces staged nearby in Iraq are harboring and possibly aiding the terrorists that attacked Ahvaz. They're either playing politics, seeing that as having more traction than an al Qaeda link, the resistance group is al Qaeda copycats, or there is an al Qaeda presence in Iran. The last speculation would cast some doubt on the Iran-AQ link.
Iranian cities of Dezful, Abadan, and Ahvaz of the Khuzestan province