Policemen stand near the wreckage of 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, 22 December 1988. AFP
Policemen stand near the wreckage of 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, 22 December 1988. AFP

1988 - The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie

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Updated 19 April 2025
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1988 - The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie

1988 - The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie
  • The Lockerbie bombing, the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history, exposed ignored warnings and left lingering questions

JEDDAH: The king leads the Saudi delegation at a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Manama, there is a new government in Israel, and there is a crisis in Sudan; that Arab News front page could have been published on almost any day in recent years. 

Except the Saudi king was King Fahd, the Israeli prime minister was Yitzhak Shamir, and another report on the page tells you that this was Dec. 23, 1988. 

Two nights before, Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to Detroit, via London and New York, had been blown up by a terrorist bomb as it crossed the border between England and Scotland. 

With a death toll of 270 — all 243 passengers and 16 crew, and 11 victims on the ground in Lockerbie, where the aircraft smashed into two residential streets at 800 kph — it remains the deadliest terror attack in UK history. 

Few events resonate all the way from a small Scottish border town to the White House. This was one such event. Lockerbie, with its 4,000 souls, joined that list of places in the UK and elsewhere — Aberfan, Munich, Srebrenica, My Lai — forever associated in the public consciousness with cruel and senseless loss of life. 

Scotland, my country, and Glasgow, my city, are not soft places, nor are the journalists they produce noted for emotional incontinence. But I saw tough, cynical, diamond-hard reporters return from Lockerbie numbed into glazed-eyed silence by the enormity of what they saw there, and full of respect and admiration for the quiet dignity and fortitude with which its townspeople bore their losses. 

How we wrote it




The jet crash headlined Arab News’ front page, detailing its devastation in the Scottish town.

Most of the plane’s passengers were American, and their relatives flew from the US to identify bodies and possessions. The people of Lockerbie temporarily buried their own grief to provide accommodation, food, comfort and solace to the bereaved. Bonds were forged that remain to this day. 

When a terrorist attack was confirmed, the perpetrator identified by Washington was inevitable. The US and the regime of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya had been in a state of undeclared war for years, and US airstrikes in April 1986, far from cowing Qaddafi, appeared only to have incensed him. 

US and UK investigators believed Libyan agents in Malta concealed a Semtex bomb inside a radio-cassette player and sent it in a suitcase to Frankfurt, where it was loaded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and the fate of 270 people was sealed. 

With some narratives, paradoxically, it can make sense to work backwards — in this case from when Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and former head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, died at his home in Tripoli on May 20, 2012, at the age of 60. 

More than 11 years earlier, in January 2001, three Scottish judges sitting at a special court in a former US air base in the Netherlands had sentenced Al-Megrahi to life imprisonment on 270 counts of murder for the Lockerbie bombing. He served more than eight years in two prisons in Scotland before the Scottish government released him on compassionate grounds when doctors said he had terminal cancer, and he returned to Libya in August 2009. Given three months to live, he lasted for nearly three years. 

Al-Megrahi was, and remains, the only person to be convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103; with his death, therefore, case closed? Well, no. 

The repercussions began soon after the disaster, and continue to this day. Pan Am, its security operations exposed as criminally useless, was bankrupt after a year and out of business after two. UN sanctions against Qaddafi and Libya reinforced their pariah status, and by February 2011 the country was embroiled in civil war. Qaddafi was captured and killed on Oct. 20, 2011. Al-Megrahi would outlive him by seven months. 

Key Dates

  • 1

    The US Federal Aviation Authority issues a bulletin warning of an anonymous tip that a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt will be blown up in the next two weeks.

  • 2

    Pan Am Flight 103 is destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie.

    Timeline Image Dec. 21, 1988

  • 3

    Alleged Libyan intelligence officers Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah are indicted for murder by US and Scottish authorities, but Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi refuses to allow their extradition for trial.

    Timeline Image Nov. 1991

  • 4

    After a nine-year standoff, Qaddafi agrees to allow Al-Megrahi and Fhimah to be tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands.

    Timeline Image May 3, 2000

  • 5

    Al-Megrahi is jailed for life. Fhimah is found not guilty.

  • 6

    Al-Megrahi loses an appeal against his conviction.

  • 7

    Qaddafi accepts Libya’s responsibility for the bombing and agrees to pay compensation to each of the victims’ families.

    Timeline Image April 29, 2003

  • 8

    Al-Megrahi, with terminal prostate cancer diagnosed, is released on compassionate grounds and returns to Libya.

    Timeline Image Aug. 20, 2009

  • 9

    Libyan civil war breaks out.

  • 10

    Libya’s former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil claims Qaddafi’s regime was implicated in the bombing.

    Timeline Image Feb. 23, 2011

  • 11

    Qaddafi is killed by rebel militia while trying to flee after the fall of Tripoli.

  • 12

    Al-Megrahi dies, aged 60.

  • 13

    The US announces the arrest of Abu Agila Masud, accused of constructing the bomb device that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103.

    Timeline Image Dec. 12, 2022

For the rest of us, airline and airport security have intensified on an apparently endless upward trajectory, and we can at least be grateful that an unaccompanied suitcase with a bomb inside can never again travel from Malta through two airports to the skies over Scotland. 

Perhaps most significantly, however, Lockerbie may have marked the beginning of a collapse in public trust in what our governments tell us. Authorities in the US and the UK have always insisted that Al-Megrahi was guilty, and that he acted alone or with a single accomplice. Few believe that. 

Major world events — the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landings, the 9/11 attacks on America — attract conspiracy theorists like iron to a magnet, and Lockerbie is no exception. It was Iran; it was the Palestinians; it was Mossad; it was the Stasi; it was apartheid South Africa. 

What makes Lockerbie different is that one of the “theories” is almost certainly fact — but which one is anyone’s guess. One man more entitled than most to make that guess is Jim Swire, the softly spoken but determined English country doctor whose daughter Flora, 23, perished on board the plane. 

Swire, now in his late eighties, has devoted his life to finding the truth about Lockerbie. He met and questioned Al-Megrahi. He met and questioned Qaddafi. He has been a thorn in the side of UK and US authorities for more than 30 years, and he believes to this day that the case against Al-Megrahi was a travesty and a tissue of lies, to cover up some ghastly truth that may never be known. 

US President George H. W. Bush set up an aviation security commission in September 1989 to report on the plane’s sabotage, and British relatives of the victims met members of the commission at the US Embassy in London in February the following year. A member of Bush’s staff told one of the relatives: “Your government and ours know exactly what happened, but they are never going to tell.” 




Local resident Robert Love stands by one of the four engines of the ill-fated Pan Am 747 Jumbo jet that exploded and crashed on route to New-York. AFP

Perhaps not. But like a tenacious shoot from a seed buried deep beneath the soil, the truth has a way of reaching the light. 

This year the production of two television drama series, one focused on Swire’s dogged search for that truth, has brought the Lockerbie tragedy back into the public consciousness. Old theories are being revived. 

But this year could also see those theories refuted — or vindicated. 

On May 12, a man identified in court papers as Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, or simply Masud, will go on trial in Washington charged with having made the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103. 

The story of how Masud was identified, captured and extradited to the US — a country with which Libya has no extradition treaty — remains to be told. 

It also remains to be seen whether the trial of Masud will bring some kind of closure, or simply further distress, for the still-grieving families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, and for the people of Lockerbie.

  • Ross Anderson, associate editor at Arab News, was on duty as a senior editor at Today newspaper in London on the night of the Lockerbie disaster.


Pakistan central bank lowers key policy rate to 11%

Pakistan central bank lowers key policy rate to 11%
Updated 5 min 2 sec ago
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Pakistan central bank lowers key policy rate to 11%

Pakistan central bank lowers key policy rate to 11%
  • The decision came in the backdrop of soaring tensions with neighboring India following a deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir
  • It will be followed by International Monetary Fund’s decision on releasing $1 billion to Islamabad from its $7 billion bailout

KARACHI: Pakistan’s central bank reduced its key policy rate by 100 basis points to 11% on Monday, resuming a series of cuts that brought the rate down from a record high of 22% after a brief pause in March.
Nine of 14 analysts surveyed by Reuters expected the central bank to cuts its key rate, with three expecting a 50 bps cut and two calling for a 100 bps cut.
The decision came in the backdrop of soaring tensions with neighboring India following a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir. The nuclear-armed neighbors have announced a raft of punitive steps that aim to hurt each other economically.
It also comes ahead of an imminent International Monetary Fund (IMF) decision on releasing Islamabad’s next tranche of $1 billion from its $7 billion bailout program.
The bank had cut the rate by 1,000 basis points since June from an all-time high of 22% before a surprise decision to hold it in March, citing the risk of price rises including from increased US tariffs.
The inflation rate fell to 0.3% in April, its lowest in roughly a decade and below finance ministry estimates of 1.5% to 2%. The central bank forecasts average inflation to be in the range of 5.5% to 7.5% for the fiscal year ending June.
Pakistan’s manufacturing sector growth slowed to a seven-month low in April, with the HBL Pakistan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) easing to 51.9 from 52.7 in March, as concerns over global trade weighed due to the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements.
New orders slumped while export orders in particular plummeted. Employment fell for a second month as firms cut costs.


Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities

Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities
Updated 15 min 36 sec ago
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Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities

Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities
  • Israeli authorities demolish 25 structures that belonged to the Dababseh family in Khallet Al-Dabaa village
  • In Ramallah, forces raze a 150 sq. meter home that housed five people

LONDON: Israeli authorities demolished several Palestinian structures, including homes, in occupied West Bank cities on Monday.

Israeli forces demolished two homes in Al-Mughayyir village, north of Ramallah. They also destroyed a 200 sq. meter home in Al-Funduq, east of Qalqilya, for building without a permit. Additionally, several structures were demolished in the Jordan Valley.

Wafa reported that Israeli authorities demolished 25 structures that belonged to the Dababseh family in Khallet Al-Dabaa village, including homes, water wells, naturally formed caves, agricultural rooms, barns, and solar panels, after forcibly evicting residents.

In Ramallah, forces demolished a 150 sq. meter home that housed five people, while a demolition notice was issued for another house.

In the northern Jordan Valley, Israeli forces destroyed homes and livestock pens belonging to residents in Khirbet Al-Deir, while in Nabi Elias village, it raided several vehicle repair garages, the Wafa news agency reported.

The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, associated with the Palestinian Authority, reported that Israeli forces or settlers carried out 1,693 attacks on Palestinian towns, their properties, and lands in April.


Spain probes deaths of thousands of Spaniards in Nazi camps

Spain probes deaths of thousands of Spaniards in Nazi camps
Updated 33 min 7 sec ago
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Spain probes deaths of thousands of Spaniards in Nazi camps

Spain probes deaths of thousands of Spaniards in Nazi camps
  • Thousands of Spaniards fled to France after Franco’s Fascist-backed nationalists overthrew a republic in the 1936-1939 civil war
  • They found themselves under Nazi occupation in France from 1940

MADRID: Spanish prosecutors on Monday said they were investigating whether General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II to send thousands of exiled Spaniards in France to death camps.
Thousands of Spaniards fled to France after Franco’s Fascist-backed nationalists overthrew a republic in the 1936-1939 civil war, only to find themselves under Nazi occupation in France from 1940.
The investigation will “clarify the relevant responsibilities and the existence of a possible joint strategy” between Franco’s dictatorship and Nazi Germany “in the detention and subsequent transfer of thousands of Spaniards exiled in France to different extermination camps,” the public prosecutor’s office said.
The Mauthausen camp in Austria was among the sites where the republican exiles “were subjected to forced labor, torture, disappearance and murder,” the prosecutor’s office added.
The human rights and democratic memory section of the office will lead the inquiry into the 4,435 recorded dead.
The prosecutors’ office said the probe coincided with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen and was launched in accordance with a divisive 2022 democratic memory law.
The left-wing government passed the legislation in a bid to tackle the legacy of the civil war and honor victims of violence and persecution under Franco, who ruled with an iron fist until his death in 1975.
The right-wing opposition says the left is trying to reopen the wounds of the past with the law and has vowed to repeal it if they return to power.


Woman killed as gunmen attack Damascus nightclub: monitor, witness

People walk past the closed entrance of Al-Karawan nightclub on Damascus’ Saadallah Al-Jabri street on May 5, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past the closed entrance of Al-Karawan nightclub on Damascus’ Saadallah Al-Jabri street on May 5, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 31 min 13 sec ago
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Woman killed as gunmen attack Damascus nightclub: monitor, witness

People walk past the closed entrance of Al-Karawan nightclub on Damascus’ Saadallah Al-Jabri street on May 5, 2025. (AFP)
  • A witness, requesting anonymity for security reasons, said he “heard gunfire at dawn” as he was near the nightclub
  • “I saw a woman’s body, blood stains on the ground, and chaos after the shooting,” he said

DAMASCUS: Armed men opened fire inside a club in Damascus on Monday, killing a woman, according to a witness and a war monitor, the second attack in a week targeting the Syrian capital’s nightlife.
The perpetrators or their motives were unknown. Some Syrians have expressed fears that the country’s new authorities would seek to impose restrictions on public behavior but it was unclear whether the attackers were linked to them.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that “unidentified gunmen attacked the Al-Karawan nightclub in the Hijaz area with automatic weapons and opened fire, killing a woman and wounding others.”
A witness, requesting anonymity for security reasons, said he “heard gunfire at dawn” as he was near the nightclub.
He told AFP that he “did not dare to enter the club until some time after the firing stopped.”
Inside the club, “I saw a woman’s body, blood stains on the ground, and chaos after the shooting,” he said.
Contacted by AFP, the interior ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the deadly attack.
The club is located in a commercial area in the heart of Damascus, where many licensed nightclubs and bars have been operating for decades.
A resident of the same street said security forces had been monitoring the venue from a vehicle for days.
A local vendor said “there has never been any problem with the nightclub” in the five years he has worked in the area.
Hours before the shooting, a video circulated on social media showing security camera footage from a previous attack on a nightclub in the same area.
The footage, verified by AFP, shows gunmen entering the venue before beating fleeing men and women with their weapons.
Authorities said on Sunday that the gunmen involved in the first incident had been arrested.
“After initial investigations and reviewing the recordings, the individuals involved in the assault were identified, arrested and transferred to the judiciary,” the interior ministry said in a statement carried by Alekhbariah television.
“Any transgression or assault affecting citizens or public facilities will be met with strict legal measures,” it added.
Since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, the intentional community has been pressing Syria’s new rulers to respect personal freedoms, protect minorities and include all components of society in the transitional period.


PFL MENA season 2 opens with world-class talent in Jeddah on Friday

PFL MENA 2 will feature world-class talent from the Middle East North Africa region. Credit: @Webook12T
PFL MENA 2 will feature world-class talent from the Middle East North Africa region. Credit: @Webook12T
Updated 58 min 7 sec ago
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PFL MENA season 2 opens with world-class talent in Jeddah on Friday

PFL MENA 2 will feature world-class talent from the Middle East North Africa region. Credit: @Webook12T
  • Reigning lightweight champion, Iran’s Mohsen Mohammadseifi, battles rising contender Ahmed El-Sisy from Egypt
  • Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz bin Moammar makes his debut against Morocco’s Fares Hamdani in catchweight bout

JEDDAH: The second season of PFL MENA begins this Friday at the Onyx Arena in Jeddah, featuring world-class talent from the Middle East North Africa region.

Headlining the card is a high-stakes lightweight showdown between reigning champion Mohsen Mohammadseifi from Iran and rising contender Ahmed El-Sisy from Egypt.

The division also features a trio of compelling matchups, with Algeria’s Souhil Tahiri taking on Kuwait’s Abdullah Saleem, and Bahrain’s Abbas Khan squaring off against Moroccan striker Salah Eddine Hamli.

The featherweight division promises equal intensity.

Jordan’s Abdelrahman Alhyasat, riding the momentum of a five-fight win streak, faces a formidable challenge in undefeated Moroccan Taha Bendaoud.

In other featured featherweight contests, Jordan’s Izzeddine Al-Derbani meets Algerian standout Mohamed Amine, while Iraq’s Hussein Salem takes on Egypt’s Assem Ghanem.

Adding to the excitement are several exhibition bouts, including Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz bin Moammar making his debut against Morocco’s Fares Hamdani in a catchweight fight.

The flyweight division will see local favorite Malik Basahel clash with Algeria’s Mountassir Boutouta.

The evening will also spotlight women’s MMA, with undefeated Kuwaiti talent Eman Almudhaf going toe-to-toe with Brazil’s Shamara Braga in a featherweight contest that promises fireworks.

Stacked with world-class talent, the PFL’s return to Jeddah sets the stage for a thrilling 2025 season.