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Why did it take Saudi Arabia 20 years to catch Khobar Towers bomber?

Reports have emerged that Saudi Arabia is holding Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil, a Saudi Shiite who masterminded the 1996 attack on US military housing in Khobar that left 19 servicemen dead.
FBI Director Louis Freeh has had the Khobar Towers bombing case reassigned
to federal prosecutors in Virginia, over strong objections from U.S.
Attorney Wilma Lewis, according to reports in both U.S. News and World
Report, and Time magazine published on March 23, 2001. U.S. News said Freeh
took the unusual step of reassigning the case because he had grown
frustrated by missteps in the investigation of the bombing of the U.S.
military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American service
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After a 20-year manhunt, the Saudis have captured the man behind a deadly 1996 terrorist attack on American airmen in the kingdom. The case will raise questions about Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's role in the murder of 19 US service members.

Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil is a Saudi Shiite who masterminded the June 25, 1996, attack on an American military barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. According to Saudi and Pakistani press accounts, Mughassil was found in Beirut and has been transferred to the kingdom. Nineteen US Air Force personnel were killed at Khobar and 372 were wounded in the attack. The FBI put a $5 million bounty for information leading to his arrest years ago.

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