A List of Deadly Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Diplomatic Targets Under President George W. Bush, 2001-2009
Here is a chronology of the deadly terrorist attacks on United States embassies, consulates and traveling U.S. personnel during the presidency of George W. Bush. The list below does not include foiled attacks or those that did not result in fatalities (other than those of the attackers). The descriptions for each incident are excerpted from the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database.
Dec. 15, 2001: Unidentified assailants gunned down a Nepalese security guard of the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Jan. 22, 2002: Two assailants attacked the American Center in Calcutta, India. Five policemen died, and 15 others were injured in the attack.
March 20, 2002: A car bomb exploded near the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, killing nine people and injuring 32. The U.S. State Department reported no American casualties, injuries, or damage.
June 14, 2002: A suicide bombing in front of the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, left 12 dead and 51 injured.
Nov. 9, 2002: The security supervisor for the U.S. embassy in Nepal was shot dead at his house in Kathmandu. Maoist rebels claimed responsibility for the incident.
May 12, 2003: In a series of attacks, suicide bombers blew themselves up in a truck loaded with explosives in a complex that housed staff working for U.S. defense firm Vinnell in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (The contractors worked out of the U.S. embassy.) At least eight Americans were killed in the incident. Al-Qaida was suspected responsible for the incident. This was one of three attacks, involving at least nine suicide bombers and suspected to have involved 19 perpetrators overall.
July 30, 2004: Two people, including a suicide bomber, were killed and one person was injured as a suicide bomber set off an explosion at the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The Israeli Embassy and the Uzbekistan Prosecutor General’s Office in Tashkent were also attacked in related incidents.
Oct. 24, 2004: Edward Seitz, the assistant regional security officer at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, died in a mortar or possible rocket attack at Camp Victory near the Baghdad airport. An American soldier was also injured. He was believed to be the first U.S. diplomat killed following the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Nov 25, 2004: Jim Mollen, the U.S. Embassy’s senior consultant to the Iraqi Ministers of Education and Higher Education, was killed just outside the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Dec. 7, 2004: Gunmen belonging to al-Qaida in the Arabian Penninsula stormed the U.S. Consulate in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, triggering a bloody four-hour siege that left nine dead. One American was slightly injured in the assault.
Jan. 29, 2005: Unknown attackers fired either a rocket or a mortar round at the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad. The strike killed two U.S. citizens and left four others injured.
Sept. 7, 2005: Four American contractors employed with a private security firm supporting the regional U.S. embassy office in Basra, Iraq, were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy. Three of the contractors died instantly, and the fourth died in a military hospital after the bombing.
March 2, 2006: An unidentified driver detonated a car bomb while driving past the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing a himself, a U.S. Consulate worker and at least three others.
Sept. 12, 2006: Islamic militants attacked the U.S. embassy in Damascus, Syria, with hand grenades, rifles, and a vehicle rigged with explosives. One guard and the four attackers died.
July 8, 2007: Two Iraqi U.S. Embassy workers were killed when the wife went to deliver a ransom for her husband who had been kidnapped in Baghdad. One of the couple's bodyguards was killed in the failed ransoming.
Jan. 14, 2008: A bomb hidden on a north Beirut highway hit a U.S. Embassy vehicle, killing at least three Lebanese bystanders. The car's Lebanese driver and an American at a nearby school were wounded.
March 18, 2008: Al-Qaida's wing in Yemen, Jund Al-Yemen Brigades, fired between three and five mortar rounds toward the U.S. embassy, but instead they hit a girls’ school nearby, killing a guard and a schoolgirl and injuring 19 others in Sanaa, Yemen.
July 9, 2008: Four unknown gunmen killed three Turkish police at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
Sept. 17, 2008: Suspected al-Qaida militants disguised as security forces detonated vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, fired rocket propelled grenades, rockets and firearms on the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen. A suicide bomber also blew himself up at the embassy. Six Yemeni police, four civilians (including an American civilian), and six attackers were killed while six others were wounded in the attack.
Nov. 27, 2008: A Taliban suicide car bomber targeted the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing four civilians in addition to the suicide bomber and wounding 18 others. The embassy was hosting a Thanksgiving Day event as Americans and other foreigners were arriving at the venue at the time of the attack.
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