Saudi Arabia has arrested the man accused as the mastermind of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 American airmen, the Saudi-owned pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed officials.
The suspect, Ahmed al-Mughassil, was identified in an American federal indictment as a senior leader of a Saudi militant group, backed by the Iranian regime, that sought to kill American military personnel in the Persian Gulf.
In June 1996, a truck bombing killed 19 Americans at the Khobar Towers barracks near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
The bombing destroyed an eight-story building in Khobar Towers, a complex housing U.S. Air Force personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia. Four hundred people were wounded in the blast, in addition to the 19 who were killed.
Mr. Mughassil is believed to have been living in Beirut since the attack, under the protection of Hezbollah, the Lebanese group which is also backed by the Iranian regime. Asharq al-Awsat said he had been detained in Beirut and handed over to the Saudi authorities.
A senior U.S. official in Washington who was briefed on the matter told The New York Times on Wednesday that it was “likely” that Mr. Mughassil was in Saudi custody after apparently being seized in Lebanon. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence and law enforcement reports, indicated that the American authorities were still waiting for additional details from Saudi officials, but expressed confidence that the mastermind of the Khobar attacks was no longer at large.
In 2006 a U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia concluded that Iran’s regime was responsible.
“The court found that Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, had worked through a proxy — Hezbollah al-Hijaz, a Saudi militant group that is affiliated with the Lebanese Hezbollah. The court said Mr. Mughassil was the ringleader in the attack”, The New York Times wrote on Thursday.
An indictment filed at the federal court in Alexandria, Va., in 2001 named Mr. Mughassil as the military leader of Hezbollah al-Hijaz, based in Qatif, the provincial center, a few miles north of Khobar. The indictment said he had recruited other Saudi Shiites to join the group, and it named 12 other Shiites from Qatif as suspects, as well as an unidentified Lebanese member of Hezbollah.
The indictment said that the Lebanese suspect assisted in the construction of the fuel-truck bomb that was used in the attack.
“Prosecutors said that Mr. Mughassil, based in Beirut and traveling often to Qatif, directed his associates to conduct surveillance of Americans in Saudi Arabia beginning as early as 1993, and that his group passed reports to Iranian officials and took direction from Iranian military officers,” The New York Times added.
“In the spring of 1996, one of his associates was caught attempting to drive into Saudi Arabia with explosives obtained in Lebanon, and the Saudi authorities arrested three others as well. But Mr. Mughassil and his group continued to transport more explosives across the border and hide them around Qatif, the indictment said.”
“At about 10 p.m. on June 25, the indictment said, two accomplices acting as scouts drove into a parking lot next to Building 131 at Khobar Towers, where a getaway car had been parked; Mr. Mughassil then drove the truck bomb into the lot, parked it next to the building and fled.”
“The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Mr. Mughassil.”
“The federal court in the District of Columbia ordered Iran to pay a total of $254 million to 17 families of those killed in the bombing.”
The evidence showed that the “Khobar bombing was planned, funded, and sponsored by senior leadership in the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote in his ruling. “The defendants’ conduct in facilitating, financing, and providing material support to bring about this attack was intentional, extreme, and outrageous.”