1996 - The bombing of Khobar Towers

RIYADH: June 25, 1996, was the day when trust was lost and an edifice was brought down. It was the day that rendered a tear in an evolving friendship. It was the day when a residential tower in Alkhobar, hosting soldiers from the international coalition that was enforcing a no fly-zone in southern Iraq after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, was bombed. It was the day many things changed. 

News of the bombing — which killed 19 Americans and a Saudi citizen, and injured 498 people of various nationalities — came as a shock to many. It was only the second major terrorist attack in the Kingdom, after the siege of Makkah in 1979. Those affected directly by the bombing were left scarred for life, but those who felt its wider reverberations elsewhere went through a range of emotions that, for some, forever changed their worldview. 

I still have clear memories of the impactful day, of how I lived through the horror from afar. The news itself scared me because of the magnitude of the attack and because it had targeted Americans while I was studying in the US. My first thought was whether there would be an adverse reaction, because the aftermath of the Oklahoma bombing on April 19, 1995, was still fresh in my mind. 

I was in Boston, studying English, when the Oklahoma bombing took place. At that time, the first piece of news about the hunt for the bomber was the arrest of a Jordanian-American man who flew from Oklahoma on the day of the attack. 

I still remember the suspicious looks from people on the subway on my way to school. I was not targeted physically or verbally but the looks were painful and a sense of distrust was evident. 

The subsequent arrests of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols came as a relief to many of us Middle Eastern students abroad. Later, I experienced similar feelings following the Alkhobar Towers bombing, and felt even worse after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. 

The Alkhobar bombing also left me with a surreal feeling that this could not happening. Meanwhile, most of us had to face questions from people who could not understand why it did. And there was no escape from the blame. Americans had been targeted, and while the country’s citizens had been victims of previous terror attacks, the difference this time was the location: It happened in Saudi Arabia. 

I was living in the city of Detroit at the time, and of course we did not have Twitter or other social media in those days to provide quick updates on the attack. The internet was still something relatively new. Arabic TV channels were not available in the US at that time. The only source of information was what we read in American newspapers and saw on US TV channels. Other updates on the attack came from friends who had talked to their families back home. 

During this period of uncertainty, I remember being asked a lot questions by my university friends, many of whom could not point to Iran or Saudi Arabia on the map. Most of the time my answers fell short. One comment that sticks in my mind was from my university history teacher, who remarked with a smile: “When we defend you, you kill us.”  

That period we were living in, after the Gulf War in 1991, was witnessing a lot of change. The presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia was an unwelcome development to a segment of society that viewed their presence in the land of the Two Holy Mosques as an unannounced invasion. This narrative was widely distributed through the many cassette tapes featuring the words of famous clerics, who never stopped calling for the withdrawal of American forces and the closure of their military bases. 

My first impression, like that of many of my American friends, was that the Alkhobar attack was carried out by terrorists influenced by hate speech. But it was later revealed that Iran was indirectly behind it. Investigations slowly revealed a conspiracy to destabilize Saudi Arabia. 

This was not surprising to me, knowing that the Iranian regime has been on a never-ending mission to destabilize Saudi Arabia since Supreme Leader Ali Khomeini came to power in 1979. 

The main mission of the regime in Tehran was to export its ideology through proxy forces in neighboring countries. What scared me most at that time was that it had managed to do this through its arm in Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah Al-Hejaz, which claimed responsibility for the attack.  

Iran is no stranger to sabotage and bad behavior in the region. It consistently attempts to brainwash young people in other countries into adopting its ideologies and turning against their own governments. We have seen how Tehran has managed to find a foothold in countries as far afield as the heart of Africa and South Asia. 

The demonstration by Iranian pilgrims in Makkah in 1987 comes to mind. I watched in horror on TV how they turned the Hajj religious event into chaos, attacking, killing and injuring many innocent pilgrims. I saw how they burned cars and beat to death police officers on the streets. Similar events happened in Madinah, where they also instigated riots and attacked pilgrims.  

A government with an ideology that does not care about sacred places and innocent lives for sure will not feel any sympathy when it directs its minions in the region to carry out such attacks. Iran will not remain calm and will not deviate from its main goal of destabilizing the region. 

It is still reaping what it sowed in Alkhobar and other areas. What has Iran gained since 1979 except chaos, war and economic sanctions? 

• Mahmoud Ahmad is a former Arab News manager. He was a bachelor of marketing student at the University of Detroit Mercy when the Khobar Towers were bombed.