19 Killed – 372 Military Personnel Wounded

The Khobar Towers bombing was a successful terrorist attack on part of a housing complex in the city of Khobar, Saudi Arabia that was being used to house foreign military and American service personnel.

The Downing Commission report, produced following the attack, indicated pre-attack surveillance of the facility had been conducted by a three person team that had visited the facility on forty (40) occasions over an eighteen (18) to twenty-one (21) month period of time. The surveillance activities of this team, as is typical, were not limited to Khobar Towers. During the same period of time they were conducting similar surveillance of the US Embassy and Consulate in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia as well as a local market near Khobar Towers that was frequented by US military personnel.

Ironically, in the months preceding the attack, a security audit at Khobar Towers resulted in the implementation of 130 physical security improvements. While the perimeter improvements diminished the impact of the attack that followed, the results were still devastating.