Word: dhahran
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Washington has sent more than 40 FBI agents and other investigators to Dhahran to work with the Saudis, hoping this time for a better reception than they received after the Riyadh bombing. The U.S. always seeks to participate in investigations of incidents in which Americans are killed, and they did so last November. Officials in Washington say the Saudis accepted FBI help until four young suspects were caught, and then cut off contact. The American experts wanted to join in the interrogation of the suspects to learn about their organization, contacts, backers and bosses. The Saudis refused, U.S. officials...
...specific role of the Air Force in Dhahran is to enforce the no-fly zone imposed on southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. But more generally, America's mission in the Persian Gulf is to protect the flow of oil. The gulf states produce two-thirds of the world's supply, so their stability is vital to the global economy. As the U.S. sees it, the biggest threats to that stability are Iraq and Iran, two powerful countries with ambitions to someday dominate the region. The U.S. policy of keeping both Iraq and Iran in check is known...
...equally brutal--but few would dispute the strategic value of protecting oil. The question, though, is whether the U.S. has become so aggressive in its buildup that it risks undermining the gulf countries even as it protects them. The U.S. tries to maintain a low profile, but as the Dhahran bombing and the one in Riyadh that preceded it both tragically indicate, the presence of U.S. soldiers incites radical Islamists. Many Arabs who are not extremists are also offended by the American military, which they view as an infidel force occupying Islam's holy land. U.S. troops further provoke internal...
Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states may still be a long way from becoming like Iran under the Shah, but the U.S. plans to stay in the gulf a long time. If more incidents like that at Dhahran are not to occur and if the region is to remain stable, the U.S. must act with care as it rapidly expands its permanent presence. Is the U.S. properly sophisticated about these matters? Comments after the bombing by General Kurt Anderson, commander of the Joint Task Force Southwest Asia, are not encouraging. Asked why Americans were attacked, Anderson said...
SCOTT MACLEOD, TIME's veteran middle East reporter, was in the Emirate of Bahrain, just minutes away from boarding a flight to Paris, when he got word of the terrorist bomb attack at the American military compound near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Without a moment's hesitation, he had his luggage removed from the plane and started working on getting a visa. It was hardly a sure thing, since MacLeod had recently reported a TIME story that the Saudi royal family found displeasing. But by the next day he was at the scene of the explosion. "It was my misfortune...