| 1983 Kuwait bombings | |
|---|---|
| Location | Kuwait City, Kuwait |
| Date | 12 December 1983 |
| Target | Infrastructure (embassies, airport, etc) |
Attack type
| Suicide bombing |
| Deaths | 5 |
Non-fatal injuries
| 86[1] |
| Perpetrators | Unknown |
The 1983 Kuwait bombings were attacks on six key foreign and Kuwaiti installations on 12 December 1983, two months after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. The 90-minute coordinated attack on two embassies, the country's main airport, and petro-chemical plant was more notable for the damage it was intended to cause than what was actually destroyed. What might have been "the worst terrorist episode of the twentieth century in the Middle East" succeeding in killing only six people because of the bombs' faulty rigging.[2]
The perpetrators of the bombing are unknown but were purported to be connected to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The motivation of the bombing is suspect to have been punishment against Kuwait, America and France for their military and financial assistance toIraq in the Iran–Iraq War.[3]
Contents
[hide]Bombings[edit]
On 12 December 1983, a truck laden with 45 large cylinders of gas connected to plastic explosives broke through the front gates of the American Embassy in Kuwait City and rammed into the embassy's three-story administrative annex, demolishing half the structure. The shock blew out windows and doors in distant homes and shops.
Only five people were killed (twoPalestinians, two Kuwaitis, and one Syrian)[4] in large part because the driver did not hit the more heavily populated chancellery building and more importantly, only a quarter of the explosives ignited. "If everything had gone off, this place would have been a parking lot," said journalist Robin Wright.[5]
Five other explosives were attempted within an hour. An hour later, a car parked outside the French embassy blew up, leaving a massive 30 ft hole in the embassy security wall. No one was killed, and only five people were wounded.
The target intended to get the most powerful explosion was Kuwait's main oil refinery and water desalinization plant, the Shuaiba Petro-chemical plant. 150 gas cylinders on a truck carrying 200 cylinders exploded at No. 2 refinery and only a few meters from a highly flammable heap of sulfa-based chemicals. Had that bombing been successful, it would have crippled its oil production of one of the world's major oil exporters and shut down most of the water supply of the nation.[6]
Other car bombs exploded at the control tower at the Kuwait International Airport, the Electricity Control Center, and the living quarters for American employees of the Raytheon Corporation, which was installing a missile system in Kuwait. Two bombs at Raytheon went off, the first intended to bring the residents outside and the second intended to kill. The attempt failed as the residents did not emerge. An Egyptian technician was killed in the control tower bombing,[7] but none of the other bombings resulted in fatalities.
The bombing of the American embassy was an early instance of suicide bombingin the Middle East, along with theHezbollah's bombings of the American Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon earlier that year.[8]
Responsibility[edit]
Islamic Jihad Organization and Islamic Dawa Party were reported at the time to be involved in the bombing.[9] Shortly after the blasts, Islamic Jihad called Kuwaiti authorities to take responsibility for the blast. The claim was taken seriously after the callers' boast that there was a "seventh bomb" was verified by the discovery of a car bomb in front of the Immigration Bureau.
Islamic Dawa was connected to the bombing when the remains of a human thumb were found and its thumbprint identified as that of Raad Murtin Ajeel, a 25-year-old Iraqi Shia member of Dawa. Ultimately, 21 other defendants were put on trial (17 captured in a nationwide manhunt and 4 tried in absentia). After a six-week trial, six were sentenced to death (three of those were in absentia), seven to life imprisonment, seven to terms between five and fifteen years.[10]One of those convicted by a court in Kuwait in February 2007 was Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, a member of Iraq's parliament and military commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, accused of acting as an Iranian agent in Iraq.[11]
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