Free Republic

The mastermind of the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans has been captured, U.S. and Saudi officials said on Aug. 26. The arrest of Ahmed al-Mughassil, who was described by the FBI in 2001 as the leader of the armed wing of the Saudi Hizbullah group, was one of the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists. The arrest concluded a nearly two-decade manhunt.

The 1996 terrorist attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 United States airmen was among the defining events of America’s recent experience in the Middle East. But there has been no judicial accountability. With the reported arrest of the man accused of masterminding the crime, a resolution of the case may be closer. The truck bombing at the eight-story dormitory near the Dharan Air Base was the deadliest such attack on American forces since the 1983 bombing of the Marines’ barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service members. In 2006, a federal court concluded that elements...

Nearly five years after a powerful truck bomb ripped through a U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia – killing 19 Americans and wounding 372 – terrorism charges have been brought against 13 members of the pro-Iran Saudi Hizballah, or “Party of God.” Another, as yet unidentified, person who is linked to the Lebanese Hizballah has also been charged in the attack. According to the indictment returned today by a Federal Grand Jury in Alexandria, Virginia, nine of the fourteen are charged with 46 separate criminal counts including: conspiracy to kill Americans and employees of the United States, to use...