Saudi arrests mastermind of Al-Khobar explosion after 19 years

Saudi security services on Wednesday arrested the mastermind of the 1996 lorry bombing in the Saudi city of Al-Khobar, which killed 19 American soldiers and wounded 372 others, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper has reported.

Saudi citizen Ahmed Al-Maghsal, who’s been on the run for 19 years, was arrested in Beirut and handed over to Saudi authorities, according to the Saudi-owned newspaper.

The newspaper said that Saudi security services received intelligence regarding the whereabouts of Al-Maghsal, who was also wanted by the FBI. He hid himself after leaking false information that he had died in Iran.

Saudi Authorities had been calling for Iran to handover Al-Meghsal and three other Saudi citizens and a Lebanese accused on involvement in Al-Khobar explosion.

According to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, the Iranian authorities have long denied any links to the explosion.

The newspaper said that Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and current President Hassan Rouhani, who was a member of the Supreme National Security Council at the time of the attack, had exerted efforts to contain the crisis between Tehran and Riyadh.

However, the US accused the Quds Force, an elite paramilitary unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, of recruiting the attackers and orchestrating the bombing.

According to Bloomberg, the US held Iran liable for the bombing in 2006 and an American judge ordered Iran to pay $254 million to families of 17 of the 19 US soldiers killed in the attack.