At least four militants used security passes to access a local petrochemical plant. Once on the grounds of the facility, they stormed the offices of the Texas-based ABB Lummus and killed seven people. Two were Americans, two were British, one was Australian and one was a Saudi National Guard member. A Canadian worker died on May 15 of his wounds.
The attackers were believed to be linked to Al Qaeda, though Crown Prince Abdullah, then de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, disputed these claims at the time. From 2003 to 2004, militants carried out attacks against the Saudi government and foreigners living there in an effort to topple the monarchy. Less than a month after these attacks, gunmen staged a similar attack in Al-Khobar, killing 22.
On 29 May 2004, a Saturday, four men armed with guns and bombs attacked two oil industry installations and a residential compound, in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia—the hub of the Saudi oil industry. Over approximately 25 hours, the gunmen, describing themselves as members of "The Jerusalem Squadron" or "Jerusalem Brigade", killed 22 and injured 25, mainly third country national personnel working in Khobar.
Abdel Aziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin Al-Muqrin, alias Abu Hajr and Abu Hazim,, was the leader of the militant Jihadist group al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. He succeeded Khaled Ali Hajj, when the latter was killed by Saudi security forces in March 2004. Al-Muqrin had trained with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Terrorism in Saudi Arabia has mainly been attributed to Islamic extremists. Their targets included foreign civilians—Westerners affiliated with its oil-based economy—as well as Saudi Arabian civilians and security forces. Anti-Western attacks have occurred in Saudi Arabia dating back to 1995. Saudi Arabia itself has been accused of funding terrorism in other countries, including Syria.
Sultan Jubran Sultan al-Qahtani was a militant in al-Qaeda's Saudi wing.
The following is a list of attacks which have been carried out by Al-Qaeda.
An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.
Qasim Yahya Mahdi al-Raymi was a Yemeni militant who was the emir of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Raymi was one of 23 men who escaped in the 3 February 2006 prison-break in Yemen, along with other notable al-Qaeda members. Al-Raymi was connected to a July 2007 suicide bombing that killed eight Spanish tourists. In 2009, the Yemeni government accused him of being responsible for the running of an al-Qaeda training camp in Abyan province. After serving as AQAP's military commander, al-Raymi was promoted to leader after the death of Nasir al-Wuhayshi on 12 June 2015.
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, or al-Qaeda in Lebanon, was a Sunni Islamist militant group, and al-Qaeda's branch in Lebanon. The group, which began operating in 2009, was founded by Saudi Saleh Al-Qaraawi and has networks in various countries, mainly in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
The South Yemen insurgency is a term used by the Yemeni government to describe the protests and attacks on government forces in southern Yemen, ongoing since 27 April 2009. Although the violence has been blamed on elements within the southern secessionist movement, leaders of the group maintain that their aims of independence are to be achieved through peaceful means, and claim that attacks are from ordinary citizens in response to the government's provocative actions. The insurgency comes amid the Shia insurgency in the country's north as led by the Houthi communities. Southern leaders led a brief, unsuccessful secession in 1994 following unification. Many of them are involved in the present secession movement. Southern separatist insurgents are active mainly in the area of former South Yemen, but also in Ad Dali' Governorate, which was not a part of the independent southern state. They are supported by the United Arab Emirates, even though the UAE is a member of the Saudi Arabian-led coalition working to support the Yemeni government.
The Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen is an ongoing armed conflict between the Yemeni government, the United States and their allies, and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Yemen. It is a part of the Global War on Terror.
The Battle of Zinjibar was a battle between forces loyal to Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh and Islamist militant forces, possibly including elements of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), for control of the town of Zinjibar and its surroundings as part of the wider insurgency in the self-declared Al-Qaeda Emirate in Yemen. Many of the Islamist forces operating in Abyan province refer to themselves as Ansar al-Sharia.
In August 2010, the Yemeni army began a siege against militants linked to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) who took control of the city of Lawdar in Abyan Governorate, Yemen. The siege was in response to an AQAP ambush on 20 August which killed 11 soldiers in the city. The siege was lifted by 24 August, with Yemeni forces successfully taking back the city. A total of 33 people were killed in the battle, 19 of them being AQAP militants.
Operation al-Shabah was launched in May 2013 by the Iraqi Army, with the stated aim of severing contact between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the al-Nusra Front in Syria by clearing militants from the border area with Syria and Jordan.
The modern history of Saudi Arabia begins with the declaration of the unification of Saudi Arabia in a single kingdom in 1932. This period of time in Saudi Arabia's history includes the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia and many events. It goes on to encompass Saudi Arabia's brief involvement in World War II in 1945. Afterwards, it includes Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Western Bloc and the Cold War. It also includes Saudi Arabia's proxy conflict with Iran, the Arab Spring, and the ongoing Arab Winter.
On 5 December 2013, a coordinated terrorist attack occurred targeting the Ministry of Defense complex in Sana'a, Yemen. Heavily armed militants utilized a car bomb to breach the gates of the complex before storming it and occupying a hospital within it. The attack, which killed 52 people and injured 167, was claimed by Ansar al-Sharia, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP later issued an apology for the attack after footage from within the hospital was broadcast showing the gunmen murdering medical personnel.
The Aden unrest was a conflict between Islamist factions, such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Yemen Branch, against the loyalists of president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and later to conflict between UAE-backed and Saudi-backed factions within the coalition. In 2017, fighting also broke out between factions aligned with different members of the Saudi-led coalition namely Saudi Arabia-backed Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and Al-Islah and UAE-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council and Southern Movement.
The Islamic State – Yemen Province is a branch of the militant Islamist group Islamic State (IS), active in Yemen. IS announced the group's formation on 13 November 2014.
Path of Blood is a 2018 British documentary film directed by Jonathan Hacker and sourced from several hundred hours of Al Qaeda footage captured by Saudi Arabian security services.
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