Hunt on for three Alkhobar bombers

JEDDAH: While Saudi Arabia has now arrested the main suspect in the 1996 bombing of the Alkhobar Towers residence at an American military base in the country, the hunt continues for three others, according to reports in the local media on Thursday.
Ahmed Al-Mughassil, the alleged leader of the Hezbollah Al-Hejaz group’s military operations unit, was arrested recently at Beirut’s Rafiq Hariri International Airport after flying into Lebanon from Tehran, Iran’s capital.
The search continues for Ibrahim Al-Yaqoubi, Abdulkarim Al-Nasser, thought to be one of the most prominent political leaders of the group, and Ali Al-Houri. According to security sources quoted by local media, the men are all living in Iran.
The June 1996 operation allegedly carried out by the Hezbollah Al-Hejaz group on the Alkhobar residential complex saw 19 American service personnel killed and almost 500 injured.
The attack sparked a hunt for members of the group, resulting in the arrest of several suspects. Four, including Al-Mughassil, remained on the Kingdom’s most-wanted list.
Sources believe that Al-Mughassil could provide information that will lead to the capture of the other suspects, which would allow Saudi Arabia to close its file on the matter.
Al-Mughassil, 48, had been indicted by a US court for the attack. Both Riyadh and Washington have accused Iran of being behind the truck-bomb attack, although Iran has denied any responsibility.
In 2006, a US federal judge ordered Iran to pay $254 million to the families of American service personnel killed in the attack in a judgment against the Iranian government, its security ministry and the Revolutionary Guards after they failed to respond to a lawsuit initiated more than four years earlier, according to reports.
According to the 209-page ruling, the truck bomb involved in the attack was assembled in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, operated by Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards, and was approved by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran rejects the findings.
Hamoud Al-Zayidi, a terrorism researcher, said Saudi security forces had been involved in a successful operation to remove Al-Mughassil from a region known for the strong presence of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group.
“It is a strike at the heart of terrorism linked to Iran,” he said. Al-Zayidi said the Ministry of Interior listed the Hezbollah Al-Hejaz organization on its list of terrorist groups in March 2014.
Hezbollah Al-Hejaz has a history of carrying out terrorist activities in the Kingdom. The group emerged in 1987 with bombings in Ras Tanoura. In March 1988, the group attacked the Sadaf petrochemical plant in Jubail.
Saudi security agencies have dismantled several cells of the group and arrested most of its members. Four of those involved in the Sadaf attack were subsequently sentenced to death.