Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Mughassil

Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Mughassil (Arabic: أحمد إبراهيم المغسل‎‎, alt. spelling Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Mughassil; born June 26, 1967 in Qatif - Bab Al Shamal, Saudi Arabia) was wanted by the United States government in connection with the June 25, 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He was indicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and charged June 21, 2001 with 46½ separate criminal counts including murder for having driven the bomb truck that blew up Khobar Towers.

Al-Mughassil is also known as Abu Omran and Arfad. He has been identified as head of the military wing of the pro-Iran Saudi Hizballah, or Hizballah Al-Hijaz, meaning Party of God. The group is one of a number of related Hizballah organizations operating in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait and Bahrain, among other places, and was outlawed in Saudi Arabia.

The indictment traces the carefully organized 1996 bomb plot back to on or about 1993 when Al-Mughassil began to carefully review his cell members' surveillance reports of Americans in Saudi Arabia.

In the Fall of 1994, the cell determined Khobar Towers to be an important American military location and began an effort in the region to locate a storage site for explosives.

In 1995, an Iranian military officer directed the cell's surveillance on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia for sites of possible future attacks against Americans, and the indictment alleges that Iranian officials enjoyed close ties and provided financial support to Al-Mughassil's party.

About June 1995, regular surveillance of Khobar Towers began, at the direction of Al-Mughassil. By late Fall 1995, Al-Mughassil had decided that Hizballah would attack Khobar Towers with a tanker truck loaded with explosives. In early 1996, Al-Mughassil began to hide explosives around the Khobar area.

...
Wikipedia