The bombing of Khobar Towers
The second major terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia offered further evidence of Iran’s influence
HOW WE WROTE IT
SUMMARY
On June 25, 1996, 19 US Air Force personnel and one Saudi citizen died when a tanker truck bomb blew the front off an eight-story block of apartments in the eastern Saudi city of Alkhobar. More than 370 Americans were wounded. It quickly became clear that responsibility for the attack lay with members of the pro-Iran Saudi branch of Hezbollah. But the attack was also proof that Iran was a sponsor of terrorism and a threat to the entire region. Five years later, a US grand jury indicted 14 individuals on murder and other charges.
But as US Attorney General John Ashcroft made clear, there was no doubt that ‘elements of the Iranian government inspired, supported and supervised’ the attackers.
quick updates on the attack. The Internet was something new. Arabic TV channels were not available at that time. The only source of information was from what we read in American newspapers and heard on US TV channels. Other updates on the attack came from friends who talked to their families back home. During this period of uncertainty, I remember being asked many questions by my university friends, many of whom could not locate Iran or Saudi Arabia on the map. Most of the time my answers fell short. One comment that sticks in my mind was that of my university history teacher, who remarked with a smile: “When we defend you, you kill us.”
The period we lived in, after the Gulf War in 1991, was witnessing a lot of change. The presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia was unwelcome to a segment of society that saw their presence in the land of the Two Holy Mosques as an unannounced invasion. This narrative was widely distributed through the many cassette tapes of famous clerics, who never stopped calling for the withdrawal of American forces and the closure of their military bases.
My first impression, like many of my American friends, was that the Alkhobar attack was by terrorists who were influenced by hate speech. But it was later revealed that Iran was indirectly behind it. Investigations slowly revealed that there was a conspiracy to destabilize Saudi Arabia.
That was not surprising to me, knowing that the Iranian regime has been on a neverending mission to destabilize Saudi Arabia ever since Supreme Leader Ali Khomeini came to power in 1979.
The regime’s main mission was to export its ideology through proxy forces in neighboring countries. What scared me most at that time was that Tehran had managed to do it through its arm in Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah Al-Hejaz, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
Iran is no stranger to sabotage and ill behavior in the region. It is consistently trying to brainwash youngsters in other countries to adopt its ideologies and turn against their own governments.
We have seen how Tehran managed to find a footprint in countries in the heart of Africa and as far as South Asia.
The demonstration of Iranian pilgrims in Makkah in 1987 comes to mind. I watched in horror on TV how they turned the
Hajj religious event into chaos, attacking, killing and injuring many innocent pilgrims. I have seen how they burned cars and beat to death police officers on the streets. Similar events happened in Madinah, when they also instigated riots and attacked pilgrims. A government with an ideology that does not care about sacred places and innocent lives will for sure not feel any sympathy when it directs its minions in the region to carry out such attacks. Iran will not stay calm, and will not deviate from its main goal of destabilizing the region. It is still reaping what it sowed in Alkhobar and other areas. What has Iran gained since 1979 except chaos, war and economic sanctions?