Twenty-five years ago, at about 9:30 pm in the evening of June 25, 1996, a huge explosion rocked the barracks for the United States Air Force 4404 Provisional Wing in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. The blast from a truck bomb was so massive it was felt in Bahrain 20 miles away. Nineteen American airmen were killed and 498 people were wounded, most of them Saudis and foreign guest workers in nearby buildings next to the parking lot where the bomb exploded.
Bruce Riedel
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy, Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology Director - The Intelligence Project
The terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers was the bloodiest attack on America between the Beirut Marine barracks disaster in 1983 and September 11, 2001. Its legacy still haunts Washington’s relations with Iran. I watched the drama up close.
I was in Jerusalem that evening traveling with Secretary of State Warren Christopher as the representative of the Secretary of Defense William Perry. The next morning we flew directly to Dhahran Airfield to see the site and meet with the survivors. En route I was told that I should stay in Dhahran when Christopher departed and prepare for a visit by Perry in a week or so. My luggage was in the hold, it left without me.
