Word: khobar
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...much of the training for bin Laden's foot soldiers. But our friendly freedom fighters turned into foes. In 1992 al-Qaeda bombed a hotel in Yemen, hoping to kill American Marines bound for Somalia. Then came the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993. Three years later, the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. In 1996 and 1998, bin Laden issued fatwas calling for Muslims to rise up and kill Americans. Making good on bin Laden's word, al-Qaeda blew up U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in synchronized attacks...
Philippines police connect the bombing to al-Khobar, a shadowy extortion gang that has carried out numerous attacks against public buses in southern Mindanao in recent years. Police Chief Inspector Querubin L. Manalang Jr. said the group called the bus company late last week threatening new attacks if their demands for payment weren't met. He said nails and other debris recovered from the site resemble bomb material used in a July attack that killed one bus passenger and wounded 35. "It was the signature bomb of the al-Kohbar group," Manalang said...
...statement earlier this year, the MILF disavowed connection with al-Khobar. But an al-Khobar member arrested in February reportedly told police that, although the gang was not officially connected to the MILF, it was run by a rogue MILF commander operating in Maguindanao, a province controlled by the MILF. The arrested man told police that, as they suspected, the group had carried out numerous bombings in southern Mindanao to extort money. Jones says some of that money may be funding MILF fighters. Al-Khobar's "extortion is criminality on one level, but it also seems to be done...
Others say the group may be connected to another insurgency that has been brewing in the Philippines for decades. Arabinda Acharya, a Philippines expert with the Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, says al-Khobar may actually be affiliated with the New People's Army, Communist insurgents who have fought a long-running guerrilla campaign against the government parallel to the MILF's. By staging attacks in Mindanao, Acharya says, the NPA may be trying to force the government to fight a two-front insurgency. "This particular group is the criminal arm of the NPA," Acharya...
...with Iran. Asgari was in the IRGC's chain of command when it was kidnapping and assassinating Westerners in Lebanon in the '80s. Asgari knows a lot about other IRGC-ordered, Lebanon-based terrorist attacks, including the October 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia...