DUBAI, Oct 27: Western naval forces said on Friday they feared possible attacks on oil installations in the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia said terrorist threats against the country’s oil facilities were ongoing.

Oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude producer, are a “high-probability potential target” for terrorist attack, but tight security measures are in place to protect them, said the spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry, General Mansur al-Turki.

“Coalition forces are taking prudent, precautionary measures and focusing maritime security operations in the Gulf on these possible threats,” a Bahrain-based spokesman for the naval forces said. Lieutenant Commander Charlie Brown said the measures were “in response to recent threats to oil infrastructure in the Gulf, including public statements by Al-Qaeda leadership”.

He declined to go into details about potential targets when asked if the threats were aimed specifically against installations in Saudi Arabia, which operates the world’s largest oil terminal at Ras Tannura on the Gulf.

Turki said threats to Saudi oil facilities by terrorist groups were ongoing, and that the authorities took the necessary security measures to prevent any attacks.

“The terrorist threat to industrial installations exists, and (oil facilities) are a declared target of the deviant group,” Turki told AFP, using the official Saudi term for Al Qaeda militants who launched a wave of attacks in the country three years ago. “There are preventive measures in any installation, be it Ras Tannura or others, to prevent any terrorist operation,” he said.—AFP