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Saudi Arabia Said to Arrest Suspect in 1996 Khobar Towers Bombing Saudi Arabia Said to Arrest Suspect in 1996 Khobar Towers Bombing
(about 2 hours later)
CAIRO — Saudi Arabia has arrested a suspect in a bombing that killed 19 members of the American military in 1996, a Saudi-owned newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed officials. CAIRO — Saudi Arabia has arrested the accused mastermind of a 1996 bombing that killed 19 American military personnel, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed officials.
The suspect, Ahmed al-Mughassil, was identified in an American federal indictment as a ringleader in the bombing. His arrest was first reported by the Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. Thirteen other suspects were also listed in the indictment, 12 of them by name. The suspect, Ahmed al-Mughassil, was identified in an American federal indictment as a senior leader of an Iranian-backed militant group, Hezbollah al-Hijaz, that sought to kill American military personnel in the Persian Gulf.
The bombing struck the Khobar Towers, a building housing American military personnel in Khobar, a city on Saudi Arabia’s gulf coast. In addition to the 19 deaths, hundreds of people were wounded in the attack. The bombing destroyed the Khobar Towers, a building housing American military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of people were wounded in the blast, in addition to the 19 who were killed.
Although some analysts have said that Al Qaeda was behind the attack, the United States District Court in Alexandria, Va., found in 2006 that Iran and an Iranian-backed group, Hezbollah al-Hijaz, were responsible for it. The federal indictment described most of the suspects as members of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority from the city of Qatif, a few miles north of Khobar. Mr. Mughassil is believed to have been living in Beirut since the attack, under the protection of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese group. The newspaper, Asharq al-Awsat, reported that he had been arrested in Beirut and handed over to the Saudi authorities; it gave no further explanation.
Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, said in a text message that he had “no information” about the arrest but was looking into it. A senior United States official in Washington who was briefed on the matter said on Wednesday that it was “likely” that Mr. Mughassil was in Saudi custody after apparently being seized in Lebanon. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence and law enforcement reports, indicated that the American authorities were still waiting for additional details from Saudi officials, but expressed confidence that the mastermind of the Khobar attacks was no longer at large.
Mr. Mughassil’s arrest, nearly two decades after the bombing, was a vivid reminder of the longstanding animosity between the United States and Iran at a time when the Obama administration is seeking congressional approval of an agreement to lift international economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.
Saudi Arabia is Iran’s chief regional rival, and Saudi leaders worry that the nuclear deal could strengthen Iran and its conventional military and embolden it to step up support for its militant allies around the region, including the group accused of carrying out the 1996 bombing.
Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, said in a text message on Wednesday that he had “no information” about the arrest of Mr. Mughassil but was looking into it.
Some analysts and American officials initially suspected that the Khobar bombing was the work of Al Qaeda, a largely Sunni terrorist group. But in 2006 a United States District Court in Alexandria, Va., citing classified evidence compiled in an investigation by the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., concluded that Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, and Hezbollah al-Hijaz, its client in Saudi Arabia, were responsible, with Mr. Mughassil as the ringleader.
Khobar is a city on the Persian Gulf coast near Dhahran in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, home to many Shiite Muslims who often complain of neglect and discrimination in the Sunni-majority kingdom. The province continues to be a locus of anti-government demonstrations, as well as more recent bombings of Shiite mosques by Sunni extremists.
An indictment filed at the federal court in Alexandria in 2001 named Mr. Mughassil as the military leader of Hezbollah al-Hijaz, based in Qatif, the provincial center, a few miles north of Khobar. The indictment said he had recruited other Saudi Shiites to join the group, and it named 12 other Shiites from Qatif as suspects, as well as an unidentified Lebanese member of Hezbollah.
The indictment said that the Lebanese suspect assisted in the construction of the fuel-truck bomb that was used in the attack.