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U.S. indicts Hizbullah
for Khobar bombing
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SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, October 11, 2001
WASHINGTON Ñ The United States has concluded that the
Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah was behind the 1996 Islamic bombing of a U.S.
military barracks in Saudi Arabia.
A federal indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va.
listed Hizbullah as the organization that sponsored the bombing of the
barracks in the Saudi city of Khobar. Nineteen servicemen were killed in the
blast.
Moreover, the indictment said the Khobar plot was discovered three
months before the actual bombing when Saudi border guards seized about 40
kilograms of explosives.
On Wednesday, President George Bush released what he termed the 22 top
terrorists in the world. Three of the terrorists are members of the
Hizbullah, Middle East Newsline reported.
The indictment, the most specific ever on a Hizbullah attack, was issued
as the Bush administration is being pressed to widen its war against
terrorism to Hizbullah and its Palestinian allies. Members of Congress have
called for an investigation between Hizbullah and attacks on U.S.
installations in the Middle East.
The 29-page indictment alleges that the plot to bomb the U.S. facility
in Khobar was formed by Shi'ites in a Damascus mosque. Three Saudi nationals
of Shi'ite extraction were recruited by Hizbullah as early as 1991 to carry
out the bombing five years later. The operation was financed by Iran.
The indictment said that Hizbullah began monitoring U.S. personnel in
Saudi Arabia in 1993. The information was relayed to Hizbullah's military
wing in Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Mughassil, based in Beirut. By late 1994,
Hizbullah determined that the Khobar tower was the best target.
Surveillance of Khobar began in June 1995 and the Hizbullah agents
devised a plan to ram a tanker truck full of explosives into the apartment
complex. The plot was disrupted when the explosives were seized in a car
driven by one of the Saudis. The detained Saudi national led Saudi
authorities to other members of the cell.
At that point, the indictment said, Mughassil returned to the Saudi
Shi'ite city of Qatif in May 1996 and recruited two other agents. Hizbullah
bought new explosives.
The Hizbullah agents bombed the Khobar tower on June 25, 1996. All of
the conspirators then escaped Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has several
suspects.
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