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military trainers in the busy commercial district of
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. The car exploded, RUBY RIDGE. See APRIL 19;
killing at least six people. The Saudi government later TERRORISM, DEFINITION AND HISTORY
arrested, tried, and beheaded four Saudi men for their OF; WACO.
involvement in the case.
The American service members working in the
building were in Riyadh as part of a U.S. Army-run
program that trained members of the Saudi National RUDOLPH, ERIC (1966– )
Guard to use U.S.-made tanks and other weapons.
The building, a converted apartment complex in
the prosperous business and shopping district of Eric Robert Rudolph remains one of the FBI’s “10
al-Olaia, served as headquarters for the training mis- most wanted” for his role in a two-state bombing
sion. The United States had built up its forces in the spree from 1996 to 1998, including the first fatal
region after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the bombing of a U.S. abortion clinic, in Alabama; a
bombing attack was apparently the work of Saudi series of bombings in the Atlanta area; and the
militants who violently opposed such a large foreign Centennial Park bombing during the 1996 Summer
and Western presence. Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
At about 11:30 A.M., just as the snack bar inside Initially, the Atlanta-area bombings were believed
the complex began to fill up, a car bomb in the build- to be part of the ever-growing antiabortion violence
ing’s lot exploded. The blast took off the entire wall throughout the southern United States. In the
of the three-story building and shattered windows early-morning hours of January 16, 1997, two bombs
nearby. Among the dead were a U.S. Army sergeant exploded at the Sandy Springs Professional Building,
and four American civilians; at least 60 people were just north of Atlanta, injuring seven. The first bomb
injured. blasted through the operating and waiting rooms of
Saudi officials arrested four militant Saudi the abortion clinic; the second, authorities believed,
Muslims; after a trial where they were found guilty, was deliberately timed to injure rescue workers
they were beheaded according to the dictates of rushing to the scene. A month later, two similarly
Islamic law. Press accounts indicated that each man manufactured bombs exploded in midtown Atlanta’s
confessed and the confessions were televised. Other Side Lounge, a gay/lesbian nightclub, injur-
A very similar bombing at the Khobar Towers ing four.
high-rise military barracks in Dhahran, in eastern On February 24, 1997, media outlets received a
Saudi Arabia, followed the Riyadh attack. On June 25, letter claiming responsibility that was signed the Army
1996, nineteen U.S. service members were killed of God, a shadowy antiabortion group active since
when a car bomb exploded near the towers housing 1982. In it, the bomber railed against abortion, the
the 2,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to the King “agents of the so-called federal government” and
Abdul Aziz Airbase in Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials against the “sodomites” at the Other Side Lounge. The
indicted 14 members of the Iranian-backed Shiite sign-off threatened, “Death to the New World Order.”
Muslim group Saudi Hezbollah in the Khobar case; Not until June 1997 did authorities link the two
however, officials have not clarified Saudi bombings to the 1996 Centennial Park bomb during the
Hezbollah’s involvement in the Riyadh bombing. Summer Olympics in Atlanta, which killed one person
and injured more than 100 others. A Turkish camera-
See also KHOBAR TOWERS BOMBING man at the scene died of a heart attack. Six months
later, after another deadly explosion at the New Woman
Further Reading All Women Health Center in Birmingham, Alabama, in
which a security guard was killed and a nurse was
Jehl, Douglas. “Bomb in Saudi Arabia Felt Round the
gravely injured, investigators announced they finally
Persian Gulf.” New York Times, November 16, 1995, A3.
had a suspect—Eric Rudolph.
Lancaster, John. “Five Americans Killed by Car Bomb at
Military Building in Saudi Capital; Suspicion Falls on Rudolph’s gray 1989 Nissan pickup truck was
Domestic Militants, Hostile Gulf Neighbors.” quickly linked to the scene of the Birmingham clinic
Washington Post, November 14, 1995. bombing. Although Rudolph was initially sought only