The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (13 page)

One of the assassins, a major, had a brother who had been arrested in the September 1981 crack down.

The group Takfir wa Hijra (Repentant and Holy Flight) was blamed, as was Libyan leader Qadhafi and the Muslim Brotherhood. In Beirut, the exiled Egyptian opposition group known variously as the Independent Organization for the Liberation of Egypt and the Rejection Front for the Liberation of Arab Egypt, headquartered in Tripoli, Libya (and, according to the Egyptian press, given $3 million by Qadhafi), claimed credit. The group was headed by Saadeddin Shazli, a former Egyptian general who was chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces between 1971 and 1973 and who subsequently broke with Sadat.

The assassins admitted that the ammunition had been purchased in the Upper Nile town of Deshna, 325 miles south of Cairo.

Police later arrested 356 Muslims affiliated with the terrorist organization that killed Sadat.

On November 12, 1981, twenty-four people were indicted for the murder. Sadat's assassins were listed as Lt. Islambouli, the commander of the artillery squad; Atta Tayem Hamida Rahim, an engineer and former reserve officer in the Egyptian Air Defense Command; Sgt. Hussein Abbas Mohammed, a member of the Home Guard; and Abdel Halim Abdel Salim Abdel Ali, a stationery store owner. Abdel Salam Farag, 27, a Cairo engineer and civilian leader of the El Jihad terrorist group, was charged with “complicity and instigation” for publishing the book
Absent Duty
, of which only 500 copies have been printed and which served as the assassins' ideological guide. A furniture dealer, three university students, and an 18-year-old high school student were accused of conspiracy. A blind mullah, Sheikh Omar Ahmed Abdel Rahman, 43, a theology professor from Cairo's Al-Azhar University who had recently taught at Asyut, was also indicted for saying “It is God's will,” when told of the assassination plot. Rahman later figured prominently in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City and a plot to bomb other New York City landmarks in 1993.

On March 6, 1982, chief judge Maj. Gen. Samir Fadel Attia announced that the 3-man military court had convicted and sentenced 22 of the 24 defendants. The blind sheikh was acquitted. Lt. Col. Zomor, 35, a member of the army's intelligence service, and his student brother, Tariq Zomor, were sentenced to life. Defendant Mohammed Salamouni read a statement in English, saying “Sadat made of himself the last pharaoh in our country. He made of himself the last shah. Sadat killed himself by his behavior here in Egypt.” At the noisy trial, the defendants—who were eventually caged for their outbursts—claimed that they had been tortured while in
prison. Ignoring all clemency appeals, President Mubarak accepted the death sentences for the four assassins and Farag. On April 15, 1982, Lt. Khaled Ahmed Shawki Islambouli, 24, and Sgt. Hussein Abbas Mohammed, 28, were killed by a firing squad, while the three civilians were hanged.

On July 17, 1988, three members of the Jihad Organization who were serving life sentences for the assassination escaped from Turrah prison at dawn after attacking two prison guards. The trio were identified as Khamis Muhammad Musallam, Muhammad Mahmud Salih al-Aswani, and ‘Isamal-Din Muhammad Kamal al-Qamari. The interior ministry offered a large financial reward. On July 25, 1988, Egyptian police fatally shot Qamari in a gun battle in the Shobra district of Cairo. Two policemen were wounded when Qamari fired a submachine gun and threw two grenades at the police, allowing the two other fugitives to escape. Police found grenades and explosives at their hideout, owned by another Muslim fundamentalist.

On November 5, 1993, Montasser Zayyat, defense lawyer for several militant Muslims standing trial in military courts, said in an interview that Switzerland had granted political asylum to Egyptian militant leader Zawahiri, accused by Egypt of relaunching the Vanguards of Conquest (New Jihad) group that assassinated President Sadat. Zayyat said his client applied for asylum six months earlier, and it was granted the previous week. Corinne Goetschel, a Swiss justice ministry spokeswoman, told the press, “This is not true. There is no one of that name who has applied for political asylum nor been granted political asylum in Switzerland.” She did not know whether Zawahiri had used another name in such a request. Zawahiri served three years in jail in connection with Sadat's murder. He had no other legal charges pending against him in Egypt.

On February 22, 1994, Copenhagen's
Politiken
ran an article on Tal'at Fu'ad Qassim, one of the leaders of the organization that killed Sadat and who still conducted terrorist attacks in Egypt. Qassim was identified as instigating terrorist attacks against Danish firms and Danish tourists in Egypt from his home in the Copenhagen area. He was under a death sentence for his part in the Sadat case. In 1981, he was arrested as a leader of the banned Holy War ( Jihad). In 1989, he escaped while being moved with other prisoners. Traveling through the Sudan and Peshawar, Pakistan, he reached Afghanistan, where he became one of the leaders of the Muslim fundamentalist volunteers aiding the mujahideen in fighting the Russians. Egypt had requested his extradition, but Qassim was given asylum from the death sentence by Denmark. He was known for his links to al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya. The Egyptian newspaper
al-Ahali
interviewed him, noting that he threatened foreign tourists and investments in Egypt, including Danish firms operating in Egypt and the 2,000 Danish tourists who holiday there each year. Qassim told the paper, “Tourism is a nonIslamic source of income which helps keep the present government in power, and foreigners have been warned to stay away from Egypt.”

Overview:
By the early 1980s, law in Lebanon had broken down and Beirut, often referred to as the Paris of the Middle East, had deteriorated into an ungovernable city, split between various factions that held turf rather than governed. Snipers and bombers roamed the city at will, threatening locals and foreigners alike. Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, and their adherents often targeted Westerners, kidnapping them and holding them for years until releasing them, sometimes dead, sometimes alive. In 1983, anti-U.S. militants upped the ante with massive car bomb attacks against the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks.

Incident:
On April 18, 1983, a U.S. Embassy car, which had been stolen in southern Lebanon, broke through a security barrier in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. An unidentified man then abandoned the vehicle just before it blew up, causing the collapse of the central section of the seven-story embassy building. Sixty-four people, including the fleeing terrorist, 17 Americans, 32 local embassy staffers, and 14 visa applicants and passersby, were killed in the blast. Another 123 people were wounded. The top Mideast expert from the Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Ames, and the deputy director of the Agency for International Development, William McIntyre, were among the dead, which also included members of the Departments of Defense and State. Even though Iran dissociated itself from the bomb attack, the Iranian-based Islamic Jihad (Muslim Holy War) claimed responsibility. The booby-trapped car was filled with 330 pounds of Hexogene, equivalent to 1,320 pounds of TNT. Many of the injured were in the visa applications section of the embassy.

On July 26, 1985, a Lebanese military magistrate charged four extremists: Hussein Saleh Harb and Mahmoud Moussa Dairaki, both Lebanese; Muhammad Nayif al-Jada', a Palestinian; and Sami Mahmoud Hujji, an Egyptian. Harb and Hujji were also charged with the 1981 bombing of the Iraq Embassy in Beirut that killed 48. By May 1986, Harb had been freed on £200,000 bail, after having been captured and held for some time. In November 1986, the military court magistrate called for the death sentence for six extremists accused of the U.S. Embassy bombing, including the four just named, all of whom were at large. At least eight others were suspected of having aided the accused in the bombing.

On April 30, 1993, a military court ruled that the suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy was a political crime and could not be punished under the political amnesty law. The ruling protected the accused, identified as Hussein Saleh Harb, Sami Mahmud al-Hijjah, Mahmud Musa al-Dirani, Muhammad Nayif al-Jada', Hasan Muhammad Harb, and ‘Ali Mustafa Haydar. The ruling also considered the assassination of French
military attaché Christian Gouttiere on September 18, 1986, as covered by the political amnesty law.

The United States announced that it would close the U.S. offices of the Lebanese-based Middle East Airlines.

On May 12, 1993, a military appeals court presided over by Judge Shaykh Amin Nassar overruled the lower court. The case was to be submitted to the Judiciary Council.

On May 14, 1993, the Islamic Jihad protested the Lebanese government's decision to repeal the military court's ruling on the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Munif' Uwaydat, attorney general at the Court of Appeals, prepared the request for repealing the ruling regarding military court's standing in the case of the bombing. The military appeals court said in its repeal that crimes committed against foreign diplomatic missions were not covered by the law.

On April 7, 2003, U.S. Agency for International Development official Anne Dammarell took the stand in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., as the lead plaintiff in a $5 billion lawsuit against Iran, identified as the sponsor of the bombing. Dammarrell was blown through a wall and sustained 19 broken bones, glass embedded in her skin, and posttraumatic stress disorder. More than 90 plaintiffs joined the suit. On September 8, 2003, U.S. district judge John D. Bates ruled that Iran had sponsored the bombing and awarded $129 million to 29 American victims and family members. Dammarell was awarded $6.7 million. Yvonne Ames, wife of Robert Ames, and their six grown children were awarded $38.2 million. Bates ruled that the plaintiffs were not entitled to punitive damages.

Overview:
Soon after the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Hizballah followed up with a coordinated attack against two military forces they deemed hostile. Hizballah exceeded the previous body count, and the U.S. administration contemplated pulling out of Lebanon.

Incident:
On October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck, packed with 2,000 pounds of a plastic explosive equivalent to 6 tons of TNT, drove through a barbed-wire perimeter fence and then passed a sandbag sentry post before coming to rest in the lobby of the Battalion Landing Team building, housing some of the U.S. Marines at Beirut International Airport. The ensuing blast created a crater 30 feet deep and 120 feet across and caused the four-story building to collapse instantly into smoldering rubble. Windows over a half mile away were shattered by the explosion.
The 6:20
A.M
. blast killed 241 American servicemen and injured over 80. Marine sentries were unable to fire on the truck because their weapons were kept unloaded per orders. A heavy iron gate placed between the barbed-wire fence and the ill-fated building had apparently been left open, allowing easy access for the suicide bomber.

About 20 seconds after the blast, a second suicide bomber dr ove his car into the eight-story apartment building housing 110 French paratroopers. When the bomb detonated, the building folded, one floor upon the other, killing 58 soldiers and injuring at least 15 others. The second blast was 2 miles to the north of the airport in the Ramel el-Baida district in central Beirut.

In a phone call to Agence France-Presse (AFP) offices in Beirut and Paris, Islamic Holy War (Islamic Jihad) claimed responsibility for both blasts. The caller issued the following statement:

Islamic Jihad is closely linked to Hizballah (Party of God), whose leader was the radical Shi'ite Muslim Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. Fadlallah's headquarters were in Baalbek, Lebanon. Husayn Musawi, Fadlallah's strongman, headed the Islamic Amal faction, which was associated with Hizballah. The Islamic Amal had ties to Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. Newspaper reports linked the Islamic Amal, Fadlallah, and Musawi to the two blasts.

In an anonymous call to AFP, the suicide bombers were identified as Abu Mazin, 26, and Abu Sijan, 24. In another call to AFP, the Free Islamic Revolution Movement (aka the Islamic Revolutionary Movement) claimed responsibility for the bombings. The linkage between Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, Islamic Amal, and the Free Islamic Revolution Movement is difficult to untangle.

On November 9, 1994, First Investigating Military Judge Riyad Tali' issued judicial warrants to the Lebanese Army Intelligence Directorate, the State Security Intelligence Department, the Internal Security Forces, and the Judicial Police, asking them to search for and apprehend the bombers of the U.S. and French Marine barracks. Hizballah condemned the decision. The decision removed the protection of a civil war amnesty covering all acts of violence between 1975 and 1990.

On March 17, 2003, some 600 relatives of the U.S. servicemen killed in the bombing filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging Iranian culpability. U.S. district judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Iran could be sued because the Marines were on a peacekeeping mission under peacetime rules of engagement, not rules of combat. He cited a
1996 law that permits U.S. citizens to take legal action against state sponsors of terrorism. The judge had entered default judgments against Iran on December 18, 2002, because of its failure to respond to the lawsuit. On May 30, 2003, Judge Lamberth ruled that Iran was behind the bombing, thereby permitting the relatives to collect damages against Iran. Lamberth said a court-appointed master would consider the financial claims. On September 7, 2007, Lambert ordered that Iran pay $2,656,944,877 to the circa 1,000 family members and survivors, specifying individual awards down to the dollar. The largest award of $12 million went to Larry Gerlach, who sustained a broken neck and became a permanent quadriplegic. As of late 2013, payment has yet to be made.