Page 46 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Al-’Owhali, Mohamed Rashed (1977– )———19

to discuss the final plans for the truck bomb assault. Al Qaeda network, al-’Owhali was later captured and
On the evening of June 25, 1996, al-Mughassil and convicted of playing a direct role in the 1998 U.S.
fellow Saudi Hezbollah member Ali Saed bin Ali embassy bombings in East Africa; he is now serving a
el-Hoorie drove a truck carrying more than 5,000 life sentence in the United States.
pounds of explosives to the Khobar Towers; they Al-’Owhali was born in Liverpool, England, where
parked the truck and quickly drove off in a waiting his wealthy Saudi father was a student. He formed
getaway car. Minutes later, the truck exploded, killing radical ideas as a teenager, listening to audiotapes of
19 U.S. service members and wounding another conservative clerics and reading religious magazines.
500 people. After high school, al-’Owhali studied at Mohamed bin
Eleven of the 14 men charged with the bombing are Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
in Saudi custody. Saudi Arabia has challenged U.S. After graduating from college, al-’Owhali and a
jurisdiction because the attack was on Saudi soil and group of friends left for Afghanistan to join the fight
was committed largely by Saudi citizens. The Saudi against the Soviets. In Afghanistan, al-’Owhali stud-
government has declared that it will not extradite ied military and covert operations; he also met Al
these men. Qaeda leaders and fought with the Taliban against the
Three other men indicted in the Khobar case, Northern Alliance in 1996.
Ahmad al-Mughassil, Ali el-Hoorie, and Ibrahim Al-’Owhali was later recruited for the attack on the
Salih Mohammed al-Yacoub are also on the FBI’s U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. In July
“most wanted” list. The U.S. State Department is 1998, he used a Yemeni passport to travel to Kenya,
offering an award of up to $25 million for informa- just a week before the bombing. In his confession,
tion leading directly to the arrest or indictment of al-’Owhali said that the operation was planned so that
al-Nasser. he and a fellow driver would die as martyrs. On
August 7, 1998, al-’Owhali rode in the cab of the
See also AHMAD IBRAHIM AL-MUGHASSIL; IBRAHIM SALIH Toyota truck carrying the bomb to the U.S. embassy
MOHAMMED AL-YACOUB; ALI SAED BIN ALI EL-HOORIE;
compound in Nairobi. As the truck neared the
HEZBOLLAH
embassy, he threw a grenade at the guard stationed
outside. Once the truck pulled up alongside the
Further Reading
embassy, al-’Owhali decided that his death was not
Melson, Kenneth E., United States Attorney. “Khobar necessary for the mission to be accomplished. Just
Indictment.” U.S. District Court, Eastern District of before his partner detonated the bomb from inside the
Virginia, Alexandria Division. http://www.usdoj. cab, al-’Owhali ran from the embassy compound.
gov/opa/pr/2001/June/khobarindictment.wpd, May 23, The blast partially demolished the embassy;
2001. 400 miles away in Dar es Salaam, another bomb
“A Nation Challenged: The Hunted; The 22 Most Wanted exploded at the U.S. embassy. In total, the blasts
Suspects, in a Five-Act Drama of Global Terror.” killed 224 people. Al-’Owhali, who had cuts and abra-
New York Times, October 14, 2001, 1B.
Walsh, Elsa. “Louis Freeh’s Last Case.” The New Yorker, sions all around his hands and face and a large wound
May 14, 2001. on his back, was left without money or plane tickets,
as he had been expected to die in the bombing. He
went to a local hospital to get treatment, and, while in
the hospital bathroom, threw away keys from the
AL-’OWHALI, MOHAMED padlock to the back of the bomb truck and three bul-
RASHED (1977– ) lets from a gun he had left in the truck. Two days later,
Kenyan officials found and arrested him. He was later
aka Mohammed Akbar, Abdul Ali Latif, Khalid Salim tried with three others in a New York court. During the
Saleh bin Rashid
trial, the prosecuting attorney showed a photograph,
taken after the bombing, of al-’Owhali, his hands
Mohamed Rashed al-’Owhali is known for being clasped together in the boxer’s symbol of victory.
the failed martyr who ran from the bomb-laden truck In June 2001, a jury sentenced the 24-year-old to
in front of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, just life in prison. Several jurors said that they had
before it exploded. A member of Osama bin Laden’s decided against the death penalty because executing