The Bombings
On 12 December 1983, a truck laden with 45 large cylinders of gas connected to plastic explosives broke through the front gates of the American Embassy in Kuwait City and rammed into the embassy's three-story administrative annex, demolishing half the structure. The shock blew out windows and doors in distant homes and shops.
Only five people were killed (Two Palestinians, two Kuwaitis, and a Syrian) in large part because the driver did not hit the more heavily populated chancellery building, and more importantly because only a quarter of the explosives ignited. "If everything had gone off, this place would have been a parking lot, one "prominent American diplomat" told journalist Robin Wright.
Five other explosives were attempted within an hour. An hour later, a car parked outside the French Embassy blew up, leaving a massive 30 foot hole in the embassy security wall. None were killed and only five people were wounded.
The target intended to get the most powerful explosion was Kuwait's main oil refinery and water desalinization plant, the Shuaiba Petro-chemical plant. A truck with 200 gas cylinders exploded 150 metres from the No.2 refinery and only a few meters from a highly flammable heap of sulfa-based chemicals. Had that bombing been successful it would have crippled its oil production of one of the world's major oil exporters and shut down most of the water supply of the desert nation.
Other car bombs exploded at the control tower at the Kuwait International Airport, the Electricity Control Center and the living quarters for American employees of the Raytheon Corporation, which was installing a missile system in Kuwait. Two bombs at Raython went off, the first intended to bring the residents out side and the second intended to kill. This attempt failed as the residents did not emerge. An Egyptian technician was killed in the control tower bombing, but none of the other bombings resulted in fatalities.
The bombing of the American embassy was an early instance of suicide bombing in the Middle East, along with the Hezbollah's bombings of the American Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon earlier that year.
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