Attack on the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan

Carried out by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the November 19 1995 attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan was retaliation against the diplomatic staffers who were accused of gathering intelligence on Jihadist factions inside Pakistan. [ [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Zawahiri.html Jewish Virtual Library: Biography of Zawahiri] ]

Ayman al-Zawahiri planned the attack, shortly after aligning himself together with Osama bin Laden. [CNN, [http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/zawahiri/profile.html Egyptian doctor emerges as terror mastermind] ]

Two men approached the embassy at approximately 9:30amMacko, Steve. [http://www.emergency.com/egyptbom.htm Terrorist Bomb Attack on Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan...] ] and killed its security detail with their guns and grenades. A pickup truck loaded with a 250-pound bomb built by Midhat MursiFact|date=March 2008 then rushed into the compound. The driver set off the bomb, blowing apart the gates. Several minutes later, a second, larger bomb also detonated and the side of the building crumbled.

The two bombers, the Second Secretary for the embassy, three Egyptian security guards and 12 others including Pakistani security guards, civilians and as many as four other diplomatsMcGirk, Tim. The Independent, "Bomb kills 14 at Egypt's embassy", November 20, 1995] were killed in total, and approximately sixty were wounded. [al-Hammadi, "The inside Story of al-Qa'ida," part 9, March 28, 2005, "al-Quds al-Arabi"] McGirk, Tim. TIME Magazine, " [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501020506-233999,00.html Rogues No More?] ", April 29, 2002] Tal, Nachman. Radical Islam in Egypt and Jordan. 2005]

It was the group's first success under Zawahiri's leadership, but Bin Laden had disapproved of the operation. The bombing alientated the host of the embassy, Pakistan, and Pakistan was "the best route into Afghanistan" [Wright, "Looming Towers", 2006, p.217] Zawahiri later referred to the bombings in his autobiographical text.

"We had to react to the Egyptian government's expansion of its campaign against Egyptian fundamentalists outside the country. So we decided to target a painful goal for all the parties of this evil alliance. After studying the situation we decided to assign a group to react to this and we assigned their targets, first bombing the American embassy in Islamabad and if that wasn't easy, then one of the American targets in Islamabad. If that didn't work, then the target should be bombing a Western embassy famous for its historic hatred for Muslims, and if not that, then the Egyptian embassy. Our extensive and detailed surveillance found that targeting the American Embassy was beyond the abilities of the assigned group, so we decided to study one of the American targets in Islamabad, and we discovered it has few American employees and most of the victims would be Pakistani. We also discovered that targeting the other Western embassies was beyond the abilities of the assigned group, so we settled on targeting the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, which was not only running a campaign for chasing Arabs in Pakistan but also spying on the Arab Mujahedeen…later, Pakistani security found in the ruins of the embassy evidence revealing the cooperation between India and Egypt in espionage."

"A short time before the bombing of the embassy the assigned group asked our permission. They told us they could strike both the Egyptian and American Embassies if we gave them extra money. We had already provided them with all that we had and we couldn't collect more money. So the group focused on bombing the Egyptian embassy. The rubble of the embassy left a clear message to the Egyptian government."
::Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, December 3, 2001

Former CIA agent Robert Baer claims that Imad Mughniyah "facilitated the travel" of somebody involved, and that one of his deputies had "provided a stolen Lebanese passport to one of the planners of the bombing". [Baer, Robert, "See No Evil", 2003]

Arrests

Immediately following the bombing, Pakistan announced the arrests of six Egyptians, two Afghans and two Jordanians. [New York Times, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9401E4DF1039F937A15752C1A963958260&scp=1&sq=embassy+bombing+islamabad&st=nyt Pakistan arrests 10 in Embassy Bombing] , November 24 1995]

The Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr was arrested in 1995, after it was discovered that Khalid Abdullah, believed to have purchased one of the vehicles used in the bombing, had been staying with the Khadr family and was engaged to their eldest daughter Zaynab. Khadr was released in March 1996 based on a lack of evidence indicating he had any involvement. [cite news|title=The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr|work=Rolling Stone|date=2006-08-24|author=Jeff Tietz] Richard A. Clarke, to the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, October 22, 2003] In April 1996, Pakistan announced they had arrested Sudanese men Syed Ahmad and Bashir Bahar Qadim in Faisalabad in connection with the attacks. [Washington Reort on Middle East Affairs, " [http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0496/9604030.htm Two Sudanese Arrested for Egyptian Embassy Bombing] ", April 1996]

In 2001, Egyptian force surrounded Khadr's house in Peshawar, and requested that Pakistani ISI forces offer assistance in capturing the man they still believed had knowledge of the Embassy bombing in Islamabad. Instead, the ISI contacted the Taliban, who sent a diplomatic car to pick up Khadr and bring him into Afghanistan.

References