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.
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.
The press accounts do not provide details on when and how the Saudis apprehended Mughassil, and the Saudi government has provided no comment or confirmation as yet. Some Lebanese accounts say Mughassil was caught just two weeks ago in Beirut. Saudi authorities have been unwilling to comment publicly on the Khobar attack since it occurred in 1996, but they privately have long pointed to Mughassil and his Iranian handlers as the perpetrators.
Born in 1967 in Qatif in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, Mughassil joined Saudi Hezbollah and became its military commander. Saudi Hezbollah, also called Hezbollah al-Hejaz, was very close to Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the 1990s. Saudi Hezbollah operatives recruited in Eastern Province around Qatif were trained in camps in Lebanon and Iran by Hezbollah and IRGC experts.
