Mexico has reinforced security around oil installations in the three southeastern states where most of the nation´s crude is extracted and processed in light of threats by Islamic fundamentalist militants to attack infrastructure that helps supply energy to the United States.This week a Saudi branch of Al Qaida urged its followers to attack the oil installations of countries that supply crude oil to the United States, among them Mexico, Venezuela and Canada.
Campeche Gov. Jorge Carlos Hurtado Valdéz told reporters the heightened security was focused on the Campeche Sound region that is the site of dozens of offshore drilling platforms.
He said the Navy and the federal defense and public security secretariats were involved in "maritime, land and air vigilance."
In Veracruz, home to refineries and an extensive network of pipelines, soldiers and patrol boats have stepped up surveillance. Ranulfo Márquez Hernández, assistant secretary of civil defense in that state, said the increased security extended to Laguna Verde, Mexico´s sole nuclear energy plant.
Army troops have been deployed around the Escolín Petrochemical Complex and the Cobos natural gas terminal in the northern part of the state, he said, and at the huge Lázaro Cárdenas refinery in Minatitlán and the Cosoleacaque, Pajaritos and Morelos petrochemical facilities in the south.
Soldiers and naval patrol vessels increased activity around the wells off the Tabasco state municipalities of Cárdenas, Paraíso, Comalcalco and Centla.
The government said after the threat was published Wednesday that the national petroleum industry "is permanently well-guarded." Responding to questions about the threats, high-ranking Foreign Relations Secretariat official Ulises Canchola noted that Mexico forms part of an internationally coordinated effort to counter terrorism.
