Bombing probe looks at possible tie to 1995 terrorist attack
June 28, 1996
Web posted at: 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 GMT)WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Investigators have some evidence of an organizational tie between Tuesday's bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and another deadly attack against Americans in the Saudi capital last November, U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry said Friday.
He said, "The investigation is centered on the possibility that this was (done by) the same group that did the November bombing" in which five Americans and two Indians were killed when a car bomb ripped into a military complex in Riyadh.
However, investigators have reached no definite conclusion. "There is some evidence pointing in that direction -- some," Perry said during an interview with reporters accompanying him on a flight from Washington to Saudi Arabia. He declined to say what the evidence is.
"I don't want to make too much of that," he said. "This is simply a very promising lead which the investigators are working on." He later called the evidence "our strongest lead."
Perry said he was going to the site of Tuesday's attack in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, to reassure U.S. troops of the importance of their mission, to examine security and to consult with Saudi officials and experts about improving security.
He said Saudi officials have cooperated with U.S. investigators since the attack.
U.S. lacked access
But sources say that the U.S. officials are privately upset that U.S. investigators did not have adequate information from those arrested in last November's bombing.
Some believe that Tuesday's attack could have been prevented if the Saudi government had not denied the FBI, CIA and the Pentagon full access to the militants arrested for the November bombing.
The New York Times reported Friday that the Saudis had rejected U.S. government requests to interview the four Saudis convicted of the November bombing before they were beheaded last month.
White House press secretary Mike McCurry admitted as much, saying, "U.S. authorities may have wished to have more opportunity to learn more about the assailants that were apprehended."
Sources say that's one reason Perry was dispatched to Saudi Arabia: To drive home the point that this time the United States won't tolerate being shut out of any part of the investigation.
U.S. officials say one reason the Saudi government doesn't want outsiders asking questions is its reluctance to admit there is home- grown opposition to the royal family.
In a related development Friday, retired four-star Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Special Operations command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, was selected to head the U.S. investigation of the bombing in Dhahran.
CNN Correspondent Jamie McIntyre and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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