Bombings Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is reacting angrily to the U.S. criminal charges filed last week in connection with the 1996 bombing of an American military barracks there, adding a new irritant to U.S.-Saudi relations at a time when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell hopes to win the support of the kingdom for Middle East peace efforts.

A remote-controlled bomb exploded outside a shop in the eastern Saudi city of Khobar on Saturday, police said. Saudi television reported that two foreigners were killed. Five foreigners were injured in the blast, Khobar's Al Fahd Hospital said. An American and a Briton were among those hurt. A U.S. Embassy official in Riyadh told Reuters news service that an American was killed. A White House spokesman said the explosion appeared unrelated to the Sept.

Flaming debris from an Iraqi Scud missile slammed into a makeshift barracks full of U.S. troops near here Monday night, killing at least 27 soldiers and injuring 98 in a fierce explosion and fire, according to the U.S. military Central Command in Riyadh. Eyewitnesses said a Patriot missile had intercepted the Scud overhead, but U.S. military officials in Riyadh said they could not confirm that a Patriot had been launched. "Why did the Patriot have to hit it?"

Three men identified as Britons were shown on Saudi state television confessing to three bomb attacks in the kingdom. The broadcast showed the middle-aged men calmly describing in minute detail how they carried out the attacks in the capital, Riyadh, and the eastern town of Al Khubar. The attacks, staged between December and March, injured three people. The men were named in Arabic as Les Walker, Jamie Patrick Leigh and James Cuttle.

The news of imminent victory in the Persian Gulf was not uppermost Wednesday in the minds of residents of this small town and others like it in the western foothills of the Alleghenies. Rather, their thoughts were of Christine Mayes of nearby Rochester Mills and Beverly Clark of Armagh--two of the first three American women to die in the Gulf War. Adrienne L. Mitchell, 20, an Army private from Moreno Valley in California, also died in the attack.

Cpl. James Binnebose was not meant to be in that barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He was a Californian, housed by chance among Pennsylvanians. He was meant to be gone that night but his mission was canceled. So he was padding back from a shower when the Scud hit. The Feb. 25 blast by the Iraqi missile blew off his shower shoes and threw him 20 feet from where he had been walking, along the outside wall of the barracks. He came to, seeing everything in black and red.

Iraq announced Monday that it will use its captured American and allied airmen as human shields against the relentless air attack on Iraqi targets, prompting U.S. officials to accuse Saddam Hussein of committing war crimes. "America is angry about this," said President Bush, who vowed that the threat will not prompt him to relax the U.S. offensive.

U.S. warplanes Friday pummeled Iraqi troops and armored vehicles moving along the Kuwaiti border with Saudi Arabia, but the aim of the Iraqi movement remained unclear. U.S. and Saudi officials said allied forces seized at least 400 Iraqi prisoners of war in two days of clashes in and near the Saudi town of Khafji that ended Thursday night. Also Friday, officials confirmed that an AC-130 Spectre gunship had been shot down in southern Iraq early Thursday.

Iraq stepped up its missile attacks Sunday and early today by firing at least 10 Scuds at two Saudi Arabian cities, including the capital of Riyadh. American Patriot air-defense batteries "engaged and destroyed" all missiles threatening the cities, according to a military spokesman. But reporters challenged the account, obviously surprising the military spokesman by saying they had surveyed damage apparently caused by a missile.

Marine Cpl. Thomas Franco stood with his M-16 rifle next to the first bridge out of Khafji, the abandoned seaside town near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border where invading Iraqi troops staged the first major ground as--sault of the Persian Gulf War. Only a few Iraqi soldiers remained holed up at the city's northern edge by day's end Friday, but with reports of tens of thousands more massing near the border, Franco was preparing for the worst.

Saudi Arabia is reacting angrily to the U.S. criminal charges filed last week in connection with the 1996 bombing of an American military barracks there, adding a new irritant to U.S.-Saudi relations at a time when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell hopes to win the support of the kingdom for Middle East peace efforts.

The long-awaited Khobar Towers bombing indictments that implicate Iran in the murder of 19 U.S. service personnel seem certain to further strain the already frosty Tehran-Washington relationship. But the damage could have been far greater if the suspected Iranian officials had been charged with the crime.

The United States charged 14 suspected Middle Eastern terrorists Thursday in the deadly bombing of an American military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, but prosecutors did not name any Iranian officials despite evidence that Tehran helped orchestrate the attack. The charges in the Khobar Towers bombing mark what outgoing FBI Director Louis J.

A Briton was severely injured in eastern Saudi Arabia when a small parcel placed near the windshield of his car exploded, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. The explosion was the third to target Britons living in Saudi Arabia within one month. The news agency quoted an official security source as saying that the parcel exploded in the man's hand as he tried to remove it. The victim was not immediately identified.

An explosion believed to have been caused by a bomb tore through a car carrying three British citizens in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, injuring two men and one woman, Saudi Arabia's Okaz newspaper reported. It was the second such incident involving Britons in a week. Okaz quoted Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmed ibn Abdul Aziz as saying one man was hospitalized with leg wounds, while the other man and the woman were treated and released.

A British hospital worker died and his wife was injured when an explosion tore through their car as they drove through Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Britain's Press Assn. said the victims, Christopher and Jane Rodway, were in their 40s and had lived in Saudi Arabia for eight years. The couple's car might have been booby-trapped, according to a police statement. Earlier, Saudi sources had said an explosive device was thrown into the vehicle from the outside.

There was no safe rear area in the Persian Gulf War, no job out of harm's way. Scud missiles made sure of that. "Nobody in a thousand years thought a warhead would come right at us," said Army Sgt. Robert Lessman, 24, of Mt. Pleasant, Pa. But of course a Scud warhead did, in front of their eyes, and Lessman was among 100 Americans injured in the attack last Monday. Another 28 GIs were killed when the explosive warhead hit the American barracks near here.

The U.S. investigation of a 1996 terrorist bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in Saudi Arabia has languished due to mutual mistrust, the New York Times has reported. The newspaper said FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has quietly pulled out dozens of agents the agency sent to investigate the truck bombing. The June 1996 blast occurred at the Khobar Towers apartment complex after a fuel truck carrying tons of explosives detonated outside.

A man who said he coordinated most of Iran's terror operations of the last decade claimed responsibility for two major attacks on the United States, the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 and the Khobar Towers bombing, "60 Minutes" reported Sunday. The man, whom the CBS News program identified as Ahmad Behbahani, told a "60 Minutes" journalist that he proposed the 1988 Pan Am operation, enlisted the help of a radical Palestinian terrorist, then trained Libyan operatives to do the job.

The U.S. investigation of a 1996 terrorist bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in Saudi Arabia has languished due to mutual mistrust, the New York Times has reported. The newspaper said FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has quietly pulled out dozens of agents the agency sent to investigate the truck bombing. The June 1996 blast occurred at the Khobar Towers apartment complex after a fuel truck carrying tons of explosives detonated outside.