Osama Bin Laden had made no secret of his intention to attack the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. He had been calling for such attacks to drive it from the country since his first fatwa calling for jihad against Western "occupation" of Islamic lands in early 1992. On Jul. 11, 1995, he had written …
Continue reading “FBI Ignored Evidence of bin Laden Role in Khobar Attack”
Gareth Porter on the Hezbollah red herring
On June 25, 1996, a massive truck bomb exploded at a building in the Khobar Towers complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, which housed U.S. Air Force personnel, killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounding 372. Immediately after the blast, more than 125 agents from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were ordered to the site …
Continue reading “Saudis Tried to Pin Khobar Bombing on Iran”
Charles Peña on Obama in Cairo
President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush administration’s confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to …
Continue reading “How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East” 
