Kuwait Bombings

The Kuwait Bombings were attacks on six key foreign installations.

Shiite truck bombers attacked the US embassy and other targets. This attack resulted in the fatalaties of 5 and injuring 80. The party held responsible for the Islamic attacks radical shia islamist members of the Iraq Islamic Dawa Party.

These coordinated attacks occurred on December 12, 1983. Along with the 5 deaths in the American Embassy attack, there was a sixth person killed when a car bomb exploded at the control tower of the Kuwait International Airport. The motivation behind these attacks was believed to be punishment of Kuwait, France, and the U.S. for the assistance they had been giving to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War around that same time period. These six separate attacks were meant to bring a high number of casualties with devastating effects throughout the country, but a string of mistakes and miscalculations on the part of the bombers resulted in much less devastation than was intended. For example, only a small portion of the explosives intended for the American Embassy in Kuwait City ignited, and the positioning of the truck carrying those explosives was not near the most highly populated building. However, the attacks did certainly get the attention of the authorities who soon place the entire country on high alert.