http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html
terrorist attacks on americans, 1979 - 1988
The attacks, the groups, and the U.S. response
Nov. 4, 1979 Hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran
Fifty-two American citizens were taken hostage when militant students of
radical Islam stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.[1] Shortly thereafter,
U.S. President Jimmy Carter ordered a complete embargo of Iranian oil;
stronger economic embargoes followed. On April 8, 1980, Carter severed
diplomatic relations with Iran after negotiations for the hostages'
release failed.
Later that month, Carter authorized a top-secret mission, named
Operation Eagle Claw, to free the hostages. Helicopters were to carry
Delta Force commandos from a carrier in the Persian Gulf to a point
outside Tehran, where they were to spend the night and begin the rescue
the next morning. The complicated mission, which involved refueling the
helicopters at a spot in the Iranian desert labeled "Desert One," was
aborted April 25 after three of the eight helicopters suffered
mechanical failure. Eight U.S. servicemen were killed when one of the
helicopters collided with a refueling plane.
The hostages were finally released just hours after Ronald Reagan's
presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981. They had spent 444 days in
captivity.
May 1981 Threats from Libya
When intelligence reports surfaced that Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi
had plans to assassinate American diplomats in Rome and Paris, President
Reagan expelled all Libyan diplomats from the U.S. (May 6, 1981) and
closed Libya's diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C. Three months
later, Reagan ordered U.S. Navy jets to shoot down Libyan fighters if
they ventured inside what was known as the "line of death." (This was
the line created by Qaddafi to demarcate Libya's territorial waters,
which he said extended more than 100 miles off the country's shoreline;
the U.S. and other maritime nations recognized Libyan territorial waters
as extending only 12 miles from shore.) As expected, the Libyan Air
Force counter-attacked and Navy jets shot down two SU-22 warplanes about
60 miles off the Libyan coast.
Some alleged that the U.S. exaggerated the terrorist threat from Libya,
in part because Libya was an easy target. The small country -- Libya is
about one-fifth the physical size of the U.S., and its entire population
at that time was only 3 million or so -- was and still is considered a
minor player in the Middle East with no steadfast allies. U.S. officials
denied Libya was used as a scapegoat, maintaining that it posed a
credible terrorist threat against U.S. targets and that Libya had
sufficient oil funds to mount a significant attack on U.S. interests.
April 18, 1983 Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut
A suicide bomber in a pickup truck loaded with explosives rammed into
the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Sixty-three people were killed,
including 17 Americans, eight of whom were employees of the Central
Intelligence Agency, including chief Middle East analyst Robert C. Ames
and station chief Kenneth Haas.
Reagan administration officials said that the attack was carried out by
Hezbollah operatives, a Lebanese militant Islamic group whose anti-U.S.
sentiments were sparked in part by the revolution in Iran. The Hezbollah
operatives who carried out the attack on the embassy reportedly were
receiving financial and logistical support from both Iran and Syria.
[For more on how and why Iran and Syria were helping to direct attacks
on the U.S., see FRONTLINE's interviews with Robert Oakley and Robert C.
McFarlane.]
The U.S. government took no military action in response to the embassy
bombing, although, according to retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, a
covert military team entered Beirut in order to gather intelligence in
preparation for retaliatory strikes.
Oct. 23, 1983 Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut
A suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives at a U.S. Marine
barracks located at Beirut International Airport; 241 U.S. Marines were
killed and more than 100 others wounded. They were part of a contingent
of 1,800 Marines that had been sent to Lebanon as part of a
multinational force to help separate the warring Lebanese factions.
(Twice during the early 1980s the U.S. had deployed troops to Lebanon to
deal with the fall-out from the 1982 Israeli invasion. In the first
deployment, Marines helped oversee the peaceful withdrawal of the PLO
from Beirut. In mid-September 1982 -- after the U.S. troops had left --
Israel's Lebanese allies massacred an estimated 800 unarmed Palestinian
civilians remaining in refugee camps. Following this, 1,800 Marines had
been ordered back into Lebanon.)
In his September 2001 FRONTLINE interview, Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger said the U.S. still lacks "actual knowledge of who did the
bombing" of the Marine barracks. But it suspected Hezbollah, believed to
be supported in part by Iran and Syria. Hezbollah denied its involvement.
The president assembled his national security team to devise a plan of
military action. The planned target was the Sheik Abdullah barracks in
Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to
be training Hezbollah fighters. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger
aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would
harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations. Instead, President Reagan
ordered the battleship USS New Jersey, stationed off the coast of
Lebanon, to the hills near Beirut. The move was seen as largely ineffective.
Four months after the Marine barracks bombing, U.S. Marines were ordered
to start pulling out of Lebanon.
Dec. 12, 1983 Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait
The American embassy in Kuwait was bombed in a series of attacks whose
targets also included the French embassy, the control tower at the
airport, the country's main oil refinery, and a residential area for
employees of the American corporation Raytheon. Six people were killed,
including a suicide truck bomber, and more than 80 others were injured.
The suspects were thought to be members of Al Dawa, or "The Call," an
Iranian-backed group and one of the principal Shiite groups operating
against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The U.S. military took no action in retaliation. In Kuwait, 17 people
were arrested and convicted for participating in the attacks. One of
those convicted was Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, a cousin and
brother-in-law of one of Hezbollah's senior officers, Imad Mughniyah.
After a six-week trial in Kuwait, Badreddin was sentenced to death for
his role in the bombings.
Over the following years, the arrest and imprisonment of the "Kuwait 17"
(also known as the "Al Dawa 17"), became one of the most consistent
demands of the kidnappers of Western hostages in Lebanon and plane
hijackers.
Ironically, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Iraqis unwittingly
released the imprisoned Badreddin and the remaining members of the
Kuwait 17. Press reports vary about Badreddin's current whereabouts.
March 16, 1984 CIA Station Chief William Buckley kidnapped
Buckley was the fourth person to be kidnapped by militant Islamic
extremists in Lebanon. The first American hostage, American University
of Beirut President David Dodge, had been kidnapped in July 1982.
Eventually, 30 Westerners would be kidnapped during the 10-year-long
Lebanese hostage-taking crisis (1982-1992).
Americans who were kidnapped included journalist Terry Anderson,
American University of Beirut librarian Peter Kilburn, and Benjamin
Weir, a Presbyterian minister. While some of the prisoners lived through
captivity -- Anderson spent the longest time as a hostage, 2,454 days --
some, including Buckley, died in captivity or were killed by their
kidnappers.
U.S. officials believed that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah was behind
most of the kidnappings and the Reagan administration devised a covert
plan. Iran was desperately running out of military supplies in its war
with Iraq, but Congress had banned the sale of American arms to
countries like Iran that sponsored terrorism. Reagan was advised that a
bargain could be struck -- secret arms sales to Iran, hostages back to
the U.S. The plan, when it was revealed to the public, was decried as a
failure and anathema to the U.S. policy of refusing to negotiate with
terrorists.
In August 1985, the first consignment of arms to Iran was sent -- 100
anti-tank missiles provided by Israel; another 408 were sent the
following month. As a result of the deal, American hostage Benjamin Weir
was released from captivity; he had been imprisoned for 495 days. Only
two other hostages were released as a result of the arms-for-hostages
deal: in July 1986, Martin Jenco, a Catholic priest, was released; and
the administrator of the American University of Beirut's medical school,
David Jacobson, was released in November 1986.
Since the funds from the arms sales to Iran were secretly, and
illegally, funneled to the U.S.-backed Contras fighting to overthrow the
Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the infamous episode became known as the
"Iran-Contra affair." (See the "Final Report of the Independent Counsel
for Iran/Contra Matters.)
Sept. 20, 1984 Bombing of U.S. Embassy annex northeast of Beirut
In Aukar, northeast of Beirut, a truck bomb exploded outside the U.S.
Embassy annex killing 24 people, two of whom were U.S. military
personnel. According to the U.S. State Department's 1999 report on
terrorist organizations, elements of Hezbollah are "known or suspected
to have been involved" in the bombing.
The U.S. mounted no military response to the embassy annex bombing, but
it did begin to explore covert operations in Lebanon. Investigative
journalist Bob Woodward says that the CIA trained foreign intelligence
agents to act as "hit teams" designed to destroy the terrorists'
operations. Ambassador Robert Oakley says the U.S. merely attempted to
set up a "protective unit," a Lebanese counterterrorist strike force.
President Reagan and the CIA called off covert operations when Lebanese
intelligence operatives -- some allegedly trained by the U.S. -- set off
a car bomb on March 8, 1985, in an attempted murder of Sheik Mohammed
Hussein Fadlallah, the Shiite Muslim cleric who some believed to be the
spiritual leader of Hezbollah. Over 80 people were killed in the attack
near a Beirut mosque. Fadlallah survived.
Many blamed the CIA for the attack, saying it had directed the
intelligence operatives to carry it out. Robert McFarlane, President
Reagan's national security adviser, says that the operatives who carried
out the attack on Fadlallah may have been trained by the U.S., but the
individuals who carried it out were "rogue operative[s]," and the CIA in
no way sanctioned or supported the attack.
Dec. 3, 1984 Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 221
Kuwait Airways Flight 221, on its way from Kuwait to Pakistan, was
hijacked and diverted to Tehran. The hijackers demanded the release of
the Kuwait 17. When the demand wasn't met, the hijackers killed two
American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On the sixth day of the drama, Iranian security forces stormed the plane
and released the remaining hostages.
Iran arrested the hijackers, saying they would be brought to trail. But
the trial never took place, and the hijackers were allowed to leave the
country. There was no U.S. military response. The State Department
announced a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of
those involved in the hijacking. Later press reports linked Hezbollah's
Imad Mughniyah to the hijackings.
June 14, 1985 Hijacking of TWA Flight 847
TWA Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome and forced to
land in Beirut, Lebanon, where the hijackers held the plane for 17 days.
They demanded the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as the release of 700
fellow Shiite Muslim prisoners held in Israeli prisons and in prisons in
southern Lebanon run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army. When
these demands weren't met, hostage Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy
diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. sources
implicated Hezbollah.
In what was widely perceived as an implicit, never explicit, quid pro
quo, the hostages started being released by the hijackers, followed some
days after by Israel starting to free some of its hundreds of Shiite
prisoners. At the time, U.S. officials denied there was a deal and said
Israel had already committed to releasing the prisoners.
Imad Mughniyah, a senior officer with Hezbollah, was secretly indicted
for the TWA hijacking in 1987, along with three others. One of those
indicted, Mohammed Ali Hamadei, was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany. In
1989 he was convicted in a German court and sentenced to life in prison.
Sixteen years later, Imad Mughniyah is still at large. (Editor's Note:
See the FBI's list of the "Most Wanted Terrorists," released Oct. 10, 2001.)
October 1985 - January 1986 Hijacking of cruise ship Achille Lauro;
Bombing of Rome, Vienna airports
On Oct. 7, 1985, off the coast of Egypt, four gunmen hijacked the
Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and demanded the release of
Palestinian prisoners in Egypt, Italy, and elsewhere. When the demands
weren't met, they killed Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old disabled
American tourist. Investigators blamed the Palestine Liberation Front,
which some believed to be allied with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian
Liberation Organization. Later, U.S. officials were able to link Libya
to the PLF and the hijacking.
After the hijackers escaped the Achille Lauro and left Egypt by air,
U.S. Navy fighters intercepted their plane and forced it down in Italy.
The four hijackers were apprehended, and in 1986, they were found guilty
in an Italian court. Two of the hijackers escaped from prison. One,
Magid al-Molgi, who confessed to killing Mr. Klinghoffer, was caught and
returned to prison. The man identified as the mastermind of the
hijacking, Abu Abbas, was released by Italy despite Washington's pleas
that he be held for trial.
Then on Dec. 17, 1985, airports in Rome and Vienna were bombed, killing
20 people, five of whom were Americans. This time, U.S. officials said
they were able to link Libya to the bombing attacks. In January, U.S.
officials decided to send the Navy and its warplanes to patrol the Gulf
of Sidra -- in territorial waters claimed by Libya -- in an effort to
provoke Qaddafi. The White House warned Qaddafi that any Libyan forces
further than 12 miles from shore were subject to attack. (The U.S. and
other nations used an international standard, set at only 12 miles from
Libya's coast, to mark the country's territorial waters; Qaddafi said
that Libya's territorial waters extended more than 100 miles from the
coastline.) At this point, the face-off between the U.S. and Libya
escalated.
April 5, 1986 Bombing of La Belle Discotheque
An American soldier was killed when a bomb was detonated at La Belle, a
discotheque in West Berlin known to be popular with off-duty U.S.
servicemen. A Turkish woman was killed, and nearly 200 others were
wounded. U.S. intelligence sources identified Libya as being responsible
for the attack. [For more on the evidence pointing to Libya, see
interviews with Paul Bremer, Caspar Weinberger, and Robert Oakley.] In
Berlin, five individuals were tried for carrying out the bombing of the
discotheque. In November 2001, four of the defendants were convicted and
sentenced, while the fifth was acquitted. The court found only Verena
Chanaa guilty of murder; she was sentenced to 14 years. Prosecutors said
Chanaa, a 42-year-old German national, brought the bomb into the disco
in a handbag. Three other defendants were all convicted of multiple
counts of attempted murder. Yasir Shraydi, a Palestinian who was said to
have assembled the bomb, was sentenced to 14 years, while Musbah Eter, a
Libyan diplomat, and Verena Chanaa's former husband, Palestinian Ali
Chanaa, were sentenced to 12 years apiece. Verena Chanaa's sister,
36-year-old Andrea Haeusler, was acquitted. She had accompanied Verena
Chanaa to the disco on the night of the bombing.
After U.S. intelligence intercepted Libyan government communications
implicating Libya in the La Belle disco attack, President Reagan ordered
retaliatory air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi. The operation on April
15, 1986, dubbed Operation El Dorado Canyon, involved 200 aircraft and
over 60 tons of bombs. One of the residences of Libyan leader Muammar
el-Qadaffi was hit in the attack, which, according to Libyan estimates,
killed 37 people and injured 93 others. As a result of this American
operation, U.S. national security officials say Libyan-sponsored
terrorism ceased "for a long time." (See interviews with Robert Oakley
and L.Paul Bremer.)
Two days after the U.S. retaliatory attack, the bodies of three American
University of Beirut employees -- American Peter Kilburn and Britons
John Douglas and Philip Padfield -- were discovered near Beirut shot to
death. The Arab Revolutionary Cells, a pro-Libyan group of Palestinians
affiliated with terrorist Abu Nidal, claimed to have executed the three
men in retaliation for Operation El Dorado Canyon.
December 21, 1988 Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York exploded over the small town
of Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people on board were killed, along with
11 on the ground. According to the State Department's "Patterns of
Global Terrorism, 1991," released in April 1992, the bombing of Pan Am
103 "was an action authorized by the Libyan Government." Though there
were reports that Syria and Iran also played significant roles in the
attack, U.S. officials were never able to tie the two countries to the
bombing. No one has ever taken credit for planting the bomb.
In May 2000 the trial of the two Libyan intelligence officers charged
with planting the bomb started in the Netherlands. It ended in February
2001 with the conviction of defendant Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi;
he received a life sentence. The other defendant, Al Amin Khalifa
Fhimah, was acquitted and set free.
footnote
[1] After the shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, was dethroned
during the Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, he traveled to
the U.S. for treatment of lymphatic cancer. Fearing that the shah's
visit to the U.S. indicated that Washington was plotting to restore the
monarchy, some 80 Iranian students staged a sit-in at the American
embassy, where the U.S. hostages were subsequently seized.
+++
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