• 8 October 2002: Two Islamists killed a U.S. Marine and wounded another on Kuwait’s Faylaka Island. Both Islamists were killed. Al Qaeda claimed the attack, saying it was “the correct, on-target attack at this stage,” praised “the mujahedin Anas al-Kandari and Jasim Hajiri,” and told “the Americans: your road to Iraq and the other countries of the Muslims will not be as easy as you imagine and hope.”44
• 12 October 2002: Indonesia’s al Qaeda-tied Jemaah Islamiya (JI) detonated a suicide car bomb at a Bali nightclub, killing more than two hundred, about half Australians. A JI fighter named Amorzi, who ran the attack, later said, “There’s some pride in my heart. For the white people it serves them right. They know how to destroy religion by the most subtle ways through bars and gambling dens.”45
• 23–26 October 2002: Chechen Islamists seized a theater in Moscow and held more than eight hundred people for fifty-eight hours before Russian forces retook the theater. More than forty Chechen guerrillas were killed, including several female fighters. At least 129 in the audience died from gas used by the security units before they stormed the theater. “As a goal it was an extremely daring operation,” al Qaeda said in congratulating the Chechens, “… the mujahideen have clearly demonstrated that they can strike at the enemy on its own turf whenever they want.”46
• 28 October 2002: Two attackers—a Libyan and a Jordanian—killed U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley at his home in Amman, Jordan. Foley worked in the U.S. embassy. The attackers probably were from Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s group, which is tied to al Qaeda and northern Iraq’s Ansar al-Islam.
• 20 November 2002: President Bush supported Russia’s handling of the October 2002 Chechen raid on a Moscow theater, stating Chechnya “is Russia’s internal affair …” He equated Chechens with “the killers who came to America,” said President Putin should “do what it takes to protect his people,” and rejected those who “tried to blame Vladimir. They ought to blame the terrorists. They’re the ones who caused the situation, not President Putin.” Al Qaeda damned Washington and its allies for letting Russia “liquidate the Chechen issue through brutality.”47
• 20 November 2002: American nurse Bonnie Penner Wetherall was killed at a Christian church in Sidon, Lebanon. Penner was an active proselytizer bent on converting young Muslims to Christianity. Penner had been warned to stop, and Shaykh Maher Mammoud of Sidon said that “the murder occurred within the context of widespread anger at America … we do not condemn [it].”48
• 20–23 November 2002: Muslims rioting in Kaduna, Nigeria, left 220 dead, fifteen hundred wounded, six thousand families homeless, and sixteen churches and nine mosques destroyed. Rioting was sparked by a reporter’s “blasphemous” claim that, if alive, the Prophet might have wanted a wife from the women in the Miss World contest to be held in Kaduna. The event was moved to the U.K. Muslim leaders called it a “parade of nudity” and criticized the government for agreeing to host the Miss World contest during Ramadan.
• 21 November 2002: A Kuwaiti policeman wounded two U.S. soldiers after he stopped their car. The policeman fled to Saudi Arabia but was returned.
• 28 November 2002: Al Qaeda attacked Israeli interests in Mombasa, Kenya, using a suicide car bomb against the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel and firing a surface-to-air missile at a Boeing 757 owned by an Israeli charter company. Twelve Kenyans and three Israelis were killed at the hotel, forty others were wounded. The missile missed the aircraft, which was carrying 261 Israelis. “The message here,” Al-Ansar explained, “is to pursue the Zionist targets all over the world….”49
• 27 December 2002: Ahmed Ali Jarallah killed Yemen’s Socialist Party chief. When captured, Jarallah said he killed the man because he was a “secularist” and said: “I do not regret what I did because I am seeking paradise. I wish I had an atomic bomb that explodes and incinerates every secularist and renegade.”50
• 27 December 2002: In Grozny, Chechen fighters drove car bombs into the headquarters of the Russian-backed regime and a communications center. More than sixty people were killed and more than a hundred were wounded.
• 30 December 2002: Islamist fighters from a group linked to al Qaeda attacked the Jiblah Hospital in southern Yemen, killing three American medical workers and wounding another. The hospital had been run for thirty-five years by Southern Baptist missionaries from the United States. Yemeni officials later said the facility was attacked because it was converting Muslims to Christianity.
• 21 January 2003: A U.S. military civilian contractor was killed and another wounded when their car was ambushed on a Kuwaiti highway near Qatar. The attacker was a Kuwaiti civil servant, Sami Mutairi. He fled to Saudi Arabia but was captured and returned by Saudi authorities. Mutairi told Kuwaiti officials the attack was meant as a “gift for Osama bin Laden.”
• 16 February 2003: A group of thirty-two editors, representing the world’s leading scientific journals, said they would delete details from studies they published if they might help terrorists build biological weapons. The editors said they would “censor scientific data” and admitted this could slow breakthroughs in basic science and engineering. Among the to-be-censored journals were Science, Nature, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
• 17 February 2003: Islamists ambushed and killed Dr. Hamid bin-Abd-al-Rhaman al-Wardi, the U.S. educated, deputy governor of Saudi Arabia’s al-Jawf Province. Al-Wardi had been involving Saudi politicians in women’s gatherings, and in doing so, according to the Islamist Web site Ilaf, had “angered the people of al-Jawf who are known for their hard-line attitude on matters of honor.”51
• 20 February 2003: Robert Dent, a thirty-seven-year-old British Aerospace employee, was shot to death at a traffic light in Riyadh. Saudi police arrested Yemen-born Saudi national Saud ibn Ali ibn Nasser and suggested he was tied to al Qaeda.
• 21 February 2003: Envelopes containing cyanide were received by the U.S. embassy and the Australian and British high commissions in Wellington, New Zealand. The letter said: “Our purpose is to challenge the actions of the great Satan America and resist its imperialist ambitions in the Islamic world.”52
• 28 February 2003: Islamists attacked Pakistani police guarding the U.S. consulate in Karachi, leaving two dead and five wounded. Pakistani officials claimed that “[t]he policemen were hate-targets because they were protecting Americans.”53
• 18 March 2003: A Yemeni Islamist shot four Hunt Oil Company employees in the Al-Safir area of northern Yemen, killing an American, a Yemeni, and a Canadian. Another Canadian was wounded. The attacker then killed himself.
• 20 March 2003: The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq. “Bin Laden must be laughing in his grave or cave,” Professor Gerges Fawaz wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “… [W]hat was unthinkable 18 months ago has happened. The U.S. has alienated those in the Islamic world who were its best hope.” Al Qaeda applauded the war, rejoicing that with U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, and Iraq, “The enemy is now spread out, close at hand, and easy to target.”54
• 25 March 2003: Two Saudi security officers were shot by drive-by gunmen at a roadblock in Sakaka, al-Jawf Province. One was killed, the other wounded.
• 11 April 2003: Ten al Qaeda fighters escaped a Yemeni high-security prison. All were suspects in the October 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole; two of them were thought to have run the attack: Jamal al-Badawi and Fahd al-Qasa.
• 1 May–1 June 2003: Chechen insurgents attacked Russian forces using ambushes, land mines, and remotely detonated mines. In this period, thirty-two Russian military and security personnel were killed, eight were wounded, and twenty-nine trucks, cars, and armored vehicles were destroyed. Russian sappers, in addition, defused 120 explosive devices—including twenty-four land mines—between 26 May and 1 June.
• 12 May 2003: A two-story building housing officials of the Russian-backed Chechen government and of the Russian security services
was destroyed in the town of Znamenskoye. The town was in an area of northern Chechnya that had been largely untouched by war. The insurgents drove a suicide truck bomb containing about a ton of TNT into the compound, killing fifty-nine and wounding 197.
• 12 May 2003: Al Qaeda suicide car bombs hit three expatriate compounds in Riyadh; bin Laden hinted at the attacks in late 2002, warning, “[The] people of the Peninsula … are facing difficult days ahead and very dangerous ordeals that Allah will test you with….” Nearly simultaneous, the attacks killed thirty-four people—nine U.S. citizens—and wounded two hundred. The cars drove far into two compounds, suggesting that the guards helped. For Muslims, the attacks had anti-Christian salience; the compounds were named by the Saudis—with their usual contempt for the West—for three Christian-conquered cities of Islamic Anadalusia, today’s Spain.
• 16 May 2003: Fourteen Islamists in five teams attacked targets in Casablanca, Morocco, including a Spanish restaurant, a Jewish-owned Italian restaurant, a Jewish cemetery, a Kuwaiti-owned hotel, and a Jewish community center. The attacks were roughly simultaneous and used homemade explosives strapped to the attackers; fourteen of the fifteen fighters were killed. The attacks killed forty-six and wounded about one hundred. Moroccan police said the fighters belonged to local Islamist groups and had received fifty thousand dollars from al Qaeda to fund the operations.
• 5 June 2003: A female Chechen suicide bomber stopped and destroyed a bus near Russia’s military airfield at Mozdok, North Ossetia. The attack killed twenty Russian air force personnel and wounded fifteen. Mozdok was the main north Caucasus air base for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft flying combat missions in Chechnya.
• 7 June 2003: In Kabul, a taxi exploded next to a bus of German troops from the International Stabilization and Assistance Force. Four died; twenty-nine were wounded.
• 5 July 2003: Two female Chechen suicide bombers detonated themselves at a concert at Moscow’s Tushino Airfield. Sixteen were killed and twenty wounded.
• 1 August 2003: Chechens detonated a suicide truck bomb at Russia’s military hospital in Mozdok, killing fifty, wounding sixty-four, and destroying the hospital.
• 5 August 2003: A JI suicide bomber attacked the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta—a popular meeting place for Americans—killing ten and wounding 152. Indonesian police said casualties would have been worse, but the driver detonated the bomb prematurely. Imam Samudra, on trial for the 2002 Bali bombing, said: “I’m happy … Thanks to Allah … [The Marriott attack] was part of the war against America. The revenge on the suppressors of Muslims will continue.”55
• 7 August 2003: A car bomb was detonated at the perimeter wall of Jordan’s embassy compound in Baghdad, blowing a thirty-foot hole in the wall and damaging several buildings. The attack killed nineteen and wounded sixty-five. The al Qaeda-related group Ansar al-Islam was among the suspected perpetrators.
• 20 August 2003: A suicide truck bomb was driven into the UN’s Baghdad headquarters in the Canal Hotel. The UN special representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and twenty-two others were killed; more than a hundred were wounded. “This criminal, Sergio Vieira de Mello,” al Qaeda wrote in claiming the attack, “… was the Crusader who carved up part of the land of Islam (East Timor).”56
• 25 August 2003: Two taxis packed with the military explosive RDX were detonated fifteen minutes apart in the Indian city of Mumbai, killing fifty-three and wounding more than 190. Indian police arrested four men they said belonged to the Kashmiri Lashkar-e Tayyiba—an ally of al Qaeda—and were tied to India’s Student Islamic Movement. The Indians said the groups also detonated bombs in Mumbai in December 2002, killing seventeen and wounding 189, and speculated that both attacks were retaliation for anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state in March 2002.
• September–October 2003: Egypt and Yemen released, respectively, 113 and one thousand Islamists from prison, the former group reportedly at the end of their sentences, the latter because they repented. Many of the Yemenis were tied to al Qaeda; all the Egyptians belonged to the Islamic Group. The releases mimicked the way some Arab regimes freed jailed Islamists early in the Afghan jihad if they would go to Afghanistan and join the mujahedin. If past is prologue, as Victor Hanson Davis wrote, the regimes might use the same device to “export them all to Iraq.”57
• September–October 2003: Events undercut Pakistan president Musharraf’s pro-U.S. policy. Israeli prime minister Sharon made an official visit to India, supported India on Kashmir, and sold India three Phalcon radar systems. The Phalcons would allow India to see far into Pakistan and, said Jane’s Defense Weekly, “give India a big strategic advantage over Pakistan.” The visit coincided with U.S. criticism of Musharraf for letting Kashmiri fighters enter India, and a joint U.S.–Indian Special Forces exercise in Indian Kashmir. Al Qaeda’s al-Zawahiri cited the events, warning the arms deal and “[t]he visit by criminal Sharon … are only the tip of the iceberg. This U.S.–Jewish–Indian alliance is against Muslims.”58
• 11 September 2003: The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC)—Algeria’s main Islamist insurgents—declared allegiance to “the direction of Mullah Omar and the [al Qaeda] organization of Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin,” as well as an intention to attack U.S. interests. The GSPC was long stubbornly Algeria-centric, and its decision to take al Qaeda’s lead and give priority to anti-U.S. attacks was a major accomplishment for bin Laden.
• 11–13 September 2003: Two elderly Moroccan Jews were killed in Casablanca and Meknes, respectively. The police tied the attacks to the Salafia Jihadia group, which was linked to the 16 May 2003 Casablanca bombings.
• 7 October 2003: NATO announced it would deploy more troops to Afghanistan, and for the first time deploy them outside Kabul. The action appeared to Afghans as the spreading and lengthening of the Western occupation of their country.
• 26–27 October 2003: On 26 October, rockets hit Baghdad’s Al-Rashid Hotel—headquarters of the U.S. occupation authority—killing one U.S. soldier and wounding seventeen people. On 27 October, the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross and four Baghdad police stations were car-bombed in a period of forty-five minutes. A fifth police station was spared when the driver of another vehicle was shot. The attacks, which killed thirty-five and wounded 224, were attributed to foreign mujahedin.
• 9 November 2003: Al-Muhaya residential compound in Riyadh was bombed; eighteen were killed and more than two hundred wounded. Nearly all casualties were expatriate Muslims. Al Qaeda issued a statement denying responsibility for the attack.
• 12 November 2003: The headquarters of the Italian military police in al-Nasariyah, Iraq, was attacked with a truck bomb. Eighteen Italian military personnel and eleven Iraqis were killed. More than a hundred people were wounded.
• 15 November 2003: Two Jewish synagogues in Istanbul were attacked by suicide car bombs; twenty-three people were killed and 303 were wounded.
• 20 November 2003: The UK Consulate and HSBC Bank building in Istanbul were attacked with suicide car bombs, killing twenty-seven people and wounding at least 450. In Iraq, a remotely detonated bomb destroyed a Polish military vehicle but caused no casualties; earlier, on 6 November, a Polish officer had been killed by insurgents.
• 30 November 2003: Insurgents killed seven Spanish intelligence officers near Baghdad and two Japanese diplomats in Tikrit. Another Spanish intelligence officer had been killed in Baghdad on 9 October 2003. In March 2003, an al Qaeda associate had warned Spain not to go to Iraq. “The wound of the occupation of Andalusia [Spain] has not healed,” Ahmed Rafat wrote, “and the decision of your government, which represents the old crusaders, to support the new crusade of U.S. Protestants is a real threat to the safety of every Spaniard….”59
• 5 December 2003: A female Chechen suicide bomber detonated herself on an intercity commuter train in Russia’s Stavropol region near Chechnya. At least forty-two people were killed, and more than one hundred were wounded.
&nb
sp; • 14 and 25 December 2003: Pakistan president Musharraf survived two attempted assassinations near Islamabad. On 14 December a mine was detonated along his travel route; on 25 December his convoy was hit by two suicide car bombs.
• 27 December 2003: In Karbala, Iraq, Islamist fighters killed four Bulgarian soldiers and two Thai soldiers.
• 27 and 28 January 2004: Suicide car bombs in Kabul on successive days killed a Canadian and a UK soldier; three Canadian and four UK soldiers were wounded.
• 1 February 2004: In Iraq, Islamist insurgents detonated themselves in the Irbil headquarters of the two main Kurdish political parties, killing 110 and wounding almost 250.
• 6 February 2004: A Chechen suicide bomber detonated himself on the Moscow subway, killing thirty-nine people and wounding 134.
• 11 March 2004: In Madrid, al Qaeda detonated ten nearly simultaneous bombs in four packed commuter trains, killing 191 people and wounding more than twelve hundred. When claiming responsibility for the attack, al Qaeda described the operation as “part of a settlement of old accounts with Crusade[r] Spain, the ally of the United States in its war against Islam.” Several days later, the conservative Spanish government was defeated in a general election, and the new socialist prime minister announced he would withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq.
Through Our Enemies' Eyes Page 33