Nigeria's open source guerrillas made some amazing strides in method this week in their war against both oil companies and the entrenched kleptocracy in Lagos (this is part of a-long-running-series-on-Nigeria's-global-guerrillas). It is also yet another example of how this century's Spanish civil war (in that the innovations in warfare that presaged the next global war were demonstrated/perfected there), the war in Iraq, continues to make its influence felt globally. The innovations introduced this week include:
- Car bombs. Car bombs were detonated at two oil company (Agip and Shell) compounds in Port Harcourt (a oil hub city in the Niger delta). Non-vehicular IEDs aren't far behind.
- Indirect systems disruption. Guerrillas bombed a water pipeline that fed a refinery in southern Nigeria. This method takes advantage of both mutual and input network interdependencies (it is also a variant of a technique that would work extremely well in Saudi Arabia). Read the brief, "Infrastructure Meltdowns" for more on network interdependencies that can be leveraged for systems disruption.
- Corporate targeting. By focusing on the employees of oil companies, the guerrillas have scored a win: Royal Dutch Shell has started to evacuate all dependents from Nigeria (the car bombs set this in motion). Read the brief: "Target: Corporate Psychology" for more on how to use attacks on corporate psychology to achieve goals in warfare.
Further reading:
Design Flaws, Methods of Attacking Critical Infrastructure
Scale free networks (and their vulnerabilities)Attacking and Defending Networks
Partial vs. Complete Systems DisruptionNOTE: Nigeria is one of America's primary sources of imported oil (particularly the low-sulfer oil that limits pollution).