A List of Deadly Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Diplomatic Targets Under Prez Bush W (GD16 GP)

[Her Sister]

More than 13 and no investigations!

Here is a chronology of the deadly terrorist attacks on United States embassies, consulates and traveling U.S. personnel during the presidency of George W. Bush. The list below does not include foiled attacks or those that did not result in fatalities (other than those of the attackers). The descriptions for each incident are excerpted from the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database.

Dec. 15, 2001: Unidentified assailants gunned down a Nepalese security guard of the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Jan. 22, 2002: Two assailants attacked the American Center in Calcutta, India. Five policemen died, and 15 others were injured in the attack.

March 20, 2002: A car bomb exploded near the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, killing nine people and injuring 32. The U.S. State Department reported no American casualties, injuries, or damage.

June 14, 2002: A suicide bombing in front of the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, left 12 dead and 51 injured.

Nov. 9, 2002: The security supervisor for the U.S. embassy in Nepal was shot dead at his house in Kathmandu. Maoist rebels claimed responsibility for the incident.

May 12, 2003: In a series of attacks, suicide bombers blew themselves up in a truck loaded with explosives in a complex that housed staff working for U.S. defense firm Vinnell in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (The contractors worked out of the U.S. embassy.) At least eight Americans were killed in the incident. Al-Qaida was suspected responsible for the incident. This was one of three attacks, involving at least nine suicide bombers and suspected to have involved 19 perpetrators overall.

July 30, 2004: Two people, including a suicide bomber, were killed and one person was injured as a suicide bomber set off an explosion at the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The Israeli Embassy and the Uzbekistan Prosecutor General’s Office in Tashkent were also attacked in related incidents.

Oct. 24, 2004: Edward Seitz, the assistant regional security officer at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, died in a mortar or possible rocket attack at Camp Victory near the Baghdad airport. An American soldier was also injured. He was believed to be the first U.S. diplomat killed following the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Nov 25, 2004: Jim Mollen, the U.S. Embassy’s senior consultant to the Iraqi Ministers of Education and Higher Education, was killed just outside the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Dec. 7, 2004: Gunmen belonging to al-Qaida in the Arabian Penninsula stormed the U.S. Consulate in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, triggering a bloody four-hour siege that left nine dead. One American was slightly injured in the assault.

Jan. 29, 2005: Unknown attackers fired either a rocket or a mortar round at the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad. The strike killed two U.S. citizens and left four others injured.

Sept. 7, 2005: Four American contractors employed with a private security firm supporting the regional U.S. embassy office in Basra, Iraq, were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy. Three of the contractors died instantly, and the fourth died in a military hospital after the bombing.

March 2, 2006: An unidentified driver detonated a car bomb while driving past the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing a himself, a U.S. Consulate worker and at least three others.

Sept. 12, 2006: Islamic militants attacked the U.S. embassy in Damascus, Syria, with hand grenades, rifles, and a vehicle rigged with explosives. One guard and the four attackers died.

July 8, 2007: Two Iraqi U.S. Embassy workers were killed when the wife went to deliver a ransom for her husband who had been kidnapped in Baghdad. One of the couple's bodyguards was killed in the failed ransoming.

Jan. 14, 2008: A bomb hidden on a north Beirut highway hit a U.S. Embassy vehicle, killing at least three Lebanese bystanders. The car's Lebanese driver and an American at a nearby school were wounded.

March 18, 2008: Al-Qaida's wing in Yemen, Jund Al-Yemen Brigades, fired between three and five mortar rounds toward the U.S. embassy, but instead they hit a girls’ school nearby, killing a guard and a schoolgirl and injuring 19 others in Sanaa, Yemen.

July 9, 2008: Four unknown gunmen killed three Turkish police at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Sept. 17, 2008: Suspected al-Qaida militants disguised as security forces detonated vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, fired rocket propelled grenades, rockets and firearms on the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen. A suicide bomber also blew himself up at the embassy. Six Yemeni police, four civilians (including an American civilian), and six attackers were killed while six others were wounded in the attack.

Nov. 27, 2008: A Taliban suicide car bomber targeted the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing four civilians in addition to the suicide bomber and wounding 18 others. The embassy was hosting a Thanksgiving Day event as Americans and other foreigners were arriving at the venue at the time of the attack.

http://www.politifact.com/embassyattacks/

Prior to Benghazi, were there 13 attacks on embassies and 60 deaths under President George W. Bush?

Our ruling

Garamendi said that "during the George W. Bush period, there were 13 attacks on various embassies and consulates around the world. Sixty people died." There are actually different ways to count the number of attacks, especially when considering attacks on ambassadors and embassy personnel who were traveling to or from embassy property. Overall, we found Garamendi slightly understated the number of deadly attacks and total fatalities, even using a strict definition. Garamendi’s claim is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/may/12/john-garamendi/prior-benghazi-were-there-13-attacks-embassies-and/

[riversedge]

1. REC

[Motley13]

2. Beirut under Reagon

Oct 23, 1983
299 dead, 241 US servicemen & 58 French servicemen

Truck bombing by Islamic Jihad

[Her Sister]

3. Was there a Benghazi type Investigation/Witch Hunt?

[Motley13]

5. This is a timeline

I'm sure that there was the usual finger pointing, it was a base.

Benghazi was Not an embassy & did not get the same security that an embassy would. Plus congress had turned down raising funds for security. Not sure why that is not mentioned.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/world/meast/beirut-marine-barracks-bombing-fast-facts/index.html

[mcar]

4. Kick!

[Hortensis]

6. Under W and Rice, personnel were encouraged to live

out in communities, away from embassies and consulates. This could be seen as seemingly a positive, even liberal, step in the "Ugly American" style, and for many safer nations it was.

Someone told me back then, though, that her nephew and others were feeling career pressure to rent in marginal areas that they would not have otherwise. I never heard how her nephew did, so presumably okay (I think he was in Turkey then), but her worry made me notice the the stories behind these statistics as they were reported.

Benghazi, a very knowledgeable and competent ambassador knowingly choosing to spend the night with his security detail in an insecure location, was nothing compared to some of those under W.

[Her Sister]

7. Very interesting information!

Besides the point: I lived in Saudi Arabia for one year and my employer housed us/me in local hotels! No security at all. Other employers housed people in compounds and I went to a couple of these and they had like 2 or 3 levels of security and checkpoints. I went to these compounds for some parties were finally I could get some alcohol and take my abaya off in mixed (gender) company.

Also went to the USA embassy a few times and it was well guarded with guard with obvious weapons/rifles. But this was long after their being attacked -as stated in the list above.

Another interesting tidbit is that Western females even though covered with the abaya and niquab were still for some reason obvious to the Saudi people. Maybe posture and way of walking.

[Hortensis]

8. Living in Saudi Arabia and knowing what it is

like to wear local garb -- now that's interesting. Understandable that it might be obvious in some way. I remember when the American-born Queen of Jordan was on a TV show here. She kept her eyes cast down and to the side through the entire interview. She was just sitting quietly and talking, but that one detail was so strikingly different that I had trouble paying attention to anything else.

Your story reminds me of books I read by an employee of a humanitarian relief NGO and the wife of a Doctors Without Borders physician. UN employees and often employees of very large, well funded NGOs benefited from far better housing and security than either of the authors, who lived in the community or wherever they needed to be to work, under local conditions.