Word: khobar
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Global superpowers aren't supposed to feel powerless. But despite its hegemony, the U.S. could not stop the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen, and last week the Bush Administration all but admitted that it is unable--or unwilling--to punish the crime's masterminds. Even though Attorney General John Ashcroft said the attack was "inspired, supported and supervised" by Iran, none of the 14 people indicted were Iranian. The indictment does allege that an Iranian military officer directed the Saudis' pre-bombing surveillance activities, and U.S. officials tell TIME...
Attorney General John Ashcroft has assured the relatives of the 19 U.S. servicemen killed in the bombing of Khobar Towers that justice will be done. But the indictment issued Thursday for the bombing suggests that even if the U.S. managed to round up any of the accused, the resulting trial would be about as satisfying to the victims' loved ones as the Lockerbie trial was to the families of those killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103. Two Libyan intelligence agents were tried for that crime, but nobody doubted that the real author - there are not too many individuals...
...same time remains concerned about the activities of the hard-line elements who are still effectively in charge - particularly their headlong rush to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and the missile technology to deliver those over great distances. Moving in any direct way to retaliate against Iran for Khobar Towers would almost certainly weaken the hand of the reformists, and force them to close ranks with the hard-liners...
...dangers are real. The Cole bombing, and this week's indictments handed down in the Khobar Towers attack, are brutal reminders of the vulnerability of U.S. personnel stationed in the Arab world to attack by extremists. Last Saturday, Indian police arrested a group of men allegedly planning to blow up the U.S. embassy in New Delhi and quickly turned up evidence linking the plot to Bin Laden. Two days later, an unrelated plan, involving suicide bombers killing U.S. agents investigating the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, was foiled in Yemen; their trail, too, leads back to Bin Laden...
Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington last week blasted FBI Director LOUIS FREEH and JOHN ASHCROFT'S Justice Department over a new wrinkle in the probe of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. After DOJ decided to yank the investigation from outgoing U.S. Attorney WILMA LEWIS and give it to prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lewis steamed that the move was "the latest gambit in an ongoing effort by Director Freeh to move this case from this office, which would not accede to his demands...