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KHOBAR TOWERS: 10 YEARS LATER
By Michelle Malkin · June 25, 2006 05:01 AM
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Never forget the 19 American Air Force airmen killed in the Khobar Towers terrorist attack on June 25, 1996:
Captain Christopher Adams
Technical Sergeant Daniel B. Cafourek
Sergeant Millard D. Campbell
Senior Airman Earl R. Cartrette Jr
Captain Leland Haun
Technical Sergeant Patrick P. Fennig
Master Sergeant Michael G. Heiser
Staff Sergeant Kevin Johnson
Sergeant Ronald King
Master Sergeant Kendall K. Kitson
Airman 1st Class Christopher Lester
Airman 1st Class Brent E. Marthaler
Airman 1st Class Brian W. McVeigh
Airman 1st Class Peter W. Morgera
Technical Sergeant Thanh V. Nguyen
Sr. Airman Jeremy A. Taylor
Airman 1st Class Joseph E. Rimkus
Airman 1st Class Justin Wood
Airman 1st Class Joshua E. Woody
Families will mark the solemn occasion at Arlington National Cemetery.
NASCAR remembers. Craig Martelle, one of CENTCOMs intelligence briefing officers at the time, remembers.
The Journal of the Air Force Association has a thorough anniversary piece, "Death in the Desert" and provides the following photos and summary info of the fallen:
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Khobar + 10
[Greyhawk]
The trick question about the Korean War - one that used to be taught to all newcomers, wasn't "when did the war begin?" It was "when did the war end?" The answer, of course, was "it hasn't - we're in a lengthy ceasefire" (in which American soldiers have died). I'm not sure how many people are aware of that.
Likewise few people are aware that the US Air Force has been involved in a shooting war, quite literally, since 1991.
Another anniversary occured in that war today, June 25 1996:
No one in the 58th Fighter Squadron could go home from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, until all rooms were clean. The contract airliner was to arrive on June 27, 1996, to fly most of the main body of 100 people home to Eglin AFB, Fla. Six of the squadron's F-15Cs would make the hop across the Atlantic, while the others were to join an Air Expeditionary Force exercise in progress.
It was Tuesday evening, June 25. For two days, personnel from the 58th had been swapping desks and packing their personal belongings, preparing to hand over duties to the incoming 27th FS. Lt. Col. Doug Cochran, the 58th FS commander, was scrubbing the bathroom in his quarters in Building 127, where most squadron members lived. Others lived in Building 131, at the north corner of the Khobar Towers complex, sharing it with a rescue squadron from Patrick AFB, Fla., and people from other units.
Brig. Gen. Terryl J. Schwalier, commander of the 4404th Wing (Provisional), was already packed, ready to leave after the change of command ceremony planned for the next day. Then came the blast. At approximately 9:50 p.m., a truck bomb exploded, throwing the force of more than 20,000 pounds of TNT against the concrete structure of Khobar. By the next day, the Air Force knew the worst. Nineteen Americans had died in the line of duty.
Literally "caught napping". No insurgent attack in Iraq has claimed as many American lives.
Within weeks of the bombing, the US would launch a "decisive" response - dubbed "Operation Desert Focus" - in which US forces "redeployed" from Dhahran and Riyadh to the remote Prince Sultan Air Base.
At approximately the same time as that "redployment", Osama bin Laden, enraged by the presence of US troops on sacred Saudi soil (there to enforce the UN "no-fly zone" in southern Iraq following Operation Desert Storm) issued a Fatwa...
Continue reading "Khobar + 10 "
Clearly after Belief (Imaan) there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land...
Under such circumstances, to push the enemy-the greatest Kufr- out of the country is a prime duty. No other duty after Belief is more important than the duty of had . Utmost effort should be made to prepare and instigate the Ummah against the enemy, the American-Israeli alliance- occupying the country of the two Holy Places and the route of the Apostle (Allah's Blessings and Salutations may be on him) to the Furthest Mosque (Al-Aqsa Mosque).
I would like here to alert my brothers, the Mujahideen, the sons of the nation, to protect this (oil) wealth and not to include it in the battle as it is a great Islamic wealth and a large economical power essential for the soon to be established Islamic state, by Allah's Permission and Grace...
Today your brothers and sons, the sons of the two Holy Places, have started their Jihad in the cause of Allah, to expel the occupying enemy from of the country of the two Holy places...
Few days ago the news agencies had reported that the Defence Secretary of the Crusading Americans had said that "the explosion at Riyadh and Al-Khobar had taught him one lesson: that is not to withdraw when attacked by coward terrorists". We say to the Defence Secretary that his talk can induce a grieving mother to laughter! and shows the fears that had enshrined you all. Where was this false courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place on 1983 AD (1403 A.H). You were turned into scattered pits and pieces at that time; 241 mainly marines solders were killed. And where was this courage of yours when two explosions made you to leave Aden in lees than twenty four hours!
But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu...
I say to you William (Defence Secretary) that: These youths love death as you loves life.
...Those youths know that their rewards in fighting you, the USA, is double than their rewards in fighting some one else not from the people of the book. They have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner.
...Those youths are different from your soldiers. Your problem will be how to convince your troops to fight, while our problem will be how to restrain our youths to wait for their turn in fighting and in operations. These youths are commendation and praiseworthy.
Those events in context of the larger war here.
All done!
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...bar-towers-bombing-renews-focus-irans-anti-usAhmed al-Mughassil, a Saudi Shi’ite indicted in the U.S. for masterminding the deadly bombing, was captured in Lebanon and transferred to Saudi Arabia, the London-based, Saudi-owned daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported Wednesday. The timing has prompted some speculation that the arrest – or the Saudis’ leak that the arrest had happened – may be intended to sway the debate over the nuclear agreement by underlining Iran’s role in anti-U.S. terrorism. Sunni Saudi Arabia, Iran’s arch-rival in the region, is leery of the nuclear deal. “The timing is suspicious,” wrote Brookings Institution senior fellow Bruce Riedel, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense at the time of the attack. “Is the news intended to remind Americans about Iran’s long history of involvement in terrorism, just as the Congressional debate on the Iran nuclear deal reaches its peak?”
The 2001 federal grand jury indictment that charged al-Mughassil and 13 others in connection with the June 25, 1996 bombing at the eight-story U.S. dormitory complex near Dhahran highlighted Iran’s role in the plot. Charges against the men – 13 Saudis and a Lebanese – included murder, bombing, conspiracy to kill Americans and federal employees, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to destroy U.S. property.
This June 30, 1996 file photo shows a general view of the destroyed Khobar Towers and crater where a truck bomb exploded at a U.S military complex, killing 19 Americans and injuring hundreds in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
On June 21, 2001 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft noted that “the indictment explains that elements of the Iranian government inspired, supported, and supervised members of the Saudi Hezbollah.” Al-Mughassil is identified as head of the military wing of Saudi Hezbollah, also known as Hezbollah al-Hejaz. “In particular, the indictment alleges that the charged defendants reported their surveillance activities to Iranian officials and were supported and directed in those activities by Iranian officials,” Ashcroft said. In Dec. 2006, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Iran was partly responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing, ordering the regime to pay $254 million in compensation to families of the victims.
Iran has long denied involvement in the Khobar Towers assault. But in collaboration with Shi’ite allies in Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it is suspected of having a hand in numerous attacks against Americans. They began in the early 1980s with the bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and extended through the Iraq war when some 500 U.S. military personnel were killed in attacks linked to Iran and specifically the Qods Force – the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) division responsible for operations abroad. Critics of the nuclear agreement negotiated between Iran and six world powers worry that the regime will use some of the funds unfrozen under the deal, and revenue earned as sanctions are lifted, to boost its sponsorship of terrorism. Under the agreement, U.N. sanctions against the IRGC-Qods Force and its commander, Qassem Soleimani, will also ultimately be lifted, although the administration says that U.S. measures against them will remain in place.
‘To serve Iran by driving the Americans out of the Gulf’
