Tackling Energy Infrastructure Vulnerability in Violence-Prone Zones

Nearly two weeks after the January 16 attack on the In Amenas gas facility in southeastern Algeria, gunmen attacke a gas pipeline in Ain Chikh, a city seventy-five miles southwest of Algiers. These attacks expose the vulnerability of energy infrastructure in regions experiencing violent unrest. The attack on In Amenas resulted in the death of more than sixty people, the traumatizing of many more, and substantial damage to the facility over the course of a four-day stand-off, while the attack in Ain Chikh was relatively smaller, with two community guards losing their lives. Despite their difference in scale, these attacks are part of a larger trend of violent non-state actors targeting energy infrastructure in key energy-producing regions. Responding to these attacks with a 'business-as-usual' strategy will not suffice...