The Khobar Towers Bombing - Saudi Arabia

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2016

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

On June 25th 1996 a huge truck bomb was planted at a US housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of people were injured and 19 US servicemen were killed. Witness speaks to two survivors of the attack, who's lives were forever changed as a result of what happened at Khobar Towers.

(The aftermath of the Khobar Towers bombing June 1996: Credit; Getty Images.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and
0:05.0	today we head for
0:06.0	today we head for Saudi Arabia
0:08.0	where on June the 25th 1996
0:11.0	an enormous truck bomb was detonated at a complex housing US airman, the
0:17.0	COBRA towers in D'Hran.
0:20.0	Scenes of devastation in Saudi Arabia after a huge explosion outside a military base.
0:26.0	The petrol tanker laden with explosives was detonated late last night.
0:30.0	The explosion tore away the front half of the military doormitory.
0:33.3	It seems the bombers back the fuel tanker up to the perimeter fence of the US base,
0:38.1	then triggered the device.
0:39.5	They knew an attack was coming. What they believed was coming was a car bomb and we were pretty prepared for that.
0:47.0	No one foresaw a truck bomb at this magnitude. None of the terrorist groups had ever done anything that big.
0:53.0	Like most of the people living in the COBRA-Towers complex,
0:56.0	William Schooly was a US airman,
0:58.0	part of Operation Southern Watch,
1:00.0	patrolling the no-fly zone over Iraq after the first Gulf War.
1:04.0	He was a munitions and explosive specialist.
1:07.0	It's very difficult to get a bomb that size to work.
1:10.0	These guys knew exactly what they were doing. The explosive was so powerful. It
1:15.8	actually rocked the whole building back on its foundation. Holy cow.
1:20.4	Eric Kaster was a 22- old combat paramedic with special operations.
	...

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