Khobar Towers bombing — the full case file

Staff Sergeant Alfredo Guerrero spotted the Khobar Towers bomb truck and began evacuating floors before it exploded. A truck bomb detonated outside a U.S. Air Force housing building at the Khobar Towers complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, on 25 June 1996, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel and wounding 498 people of various nationalities. “significant shortcomings in planning, intelligence, and basic security,” The New York Times said. On November 13, 1995, a car bombing in Al Olaya, Riyadh, outside the OPM-SANG headquarters killed six Americans and two Indian citizens, raising the threat level at Khobar Towers. In June 1996, Attackers purchased a tanker truck in Saudi Arabia and converted it into a truck bomb over roughly two weeks. On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb was detonated adjacent to Building #131 of the Khobar Towers complex at approximately 10:20 p.m. local time, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel and wounding 498 people. In April 1997, Gen. John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon lacked sufficient evidence about the bombers to consider retaliation. In June 2001, a U.S. federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia issued an indictment charging thirteen named individuals and an unidentified 'John Doe' with murder, conspiracy, and related offenses. In July 2001, Saudi Arabia said eleven of those indicted were in Saudi custody but declined to extradite them to the United States. On December 22, 2006, U.S. federal judge Royce C. Lamberth issued a default judgment ruling that Iran and Hezbollah were directly and personally responsible for the attack. In August 2015, Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Mughassil had been arrested in Beirut and transferred to Saudi Arabian custody. The case remains unsolved. This case file is kept in memory of its nineteen victims and the people they loved. The full sourced case file, with every fact cited, is at casepin dot org.

Transcript from the video’s narration track. For every source, open the case file.