Terrorist Attacks on the Energy Sector: A Strategic Instrument of the Islamic State in the Middle East and North Africa

In: Mediterranean quarterly: a journal of global issues, Band 28, Heft 3, S. 68-92

Abstract

This essay focuses on the global terrorist and militant group the Islamic State (IS), specifically on its use of terrorism targeting the energy sector as a strategic political instrument in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2014–16. The essay has two main thrusts. First, it analyzes the importance that the IS attributes to energy in general and, more specifically, to the strategy of terrorist attacks targeting the energy sector. Second, the essay describes examples, goals, and motives of terrorist attacks on the energy sector and the accompanying criminal activities conducted by the IS in selected MENA countries.