stylistic:style_transfer
Terrorism

At mid-day on 6 December 2004, militants loyal to the regional affiliate of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, launched an attack on the U.S. Consulate, killing five employees. The group was led by Fayez ibn Awwad Al-Jeheni, a former member of the religious police. Two of the other assailants were subsequently identified by Saudi authorities as residents of Jeddah's Al-Jamia suburb and other slums on Saudi Arabia's increasingly urbanized west coast. Buildings were attacked, hostages taken and used as human shields, targetting both Americans and non-Americans alike. Despite enduring a protracted siege, the chancery/consular section of the building was never penetrated. Closed-circuit video feeds documented that the Saudi security personnel assigned to protect the facility fled when the vehicle holding the terrorists pulled up to the front gate and ran past the Delta barrier. Inside the compound, however, an armed Saudi security guard employed by the embassy shot and killed one of the five terrorists before being fatally shot himself.

The attackers spread and ignited a flammable liquid on the front of the chancery building, and opened fire on the front doors, both of which actions did not have any penetrating effect. The Consulate's U.S. Marines released tear gas in front of the chancery building, but the terrorists had already left that location. More than an hour later, Saudi special forces made it through traffic and, along with others from their unit who arrived in a helicopter, fought to retake the compound. In the final shootout, two of the terrorists were killed, with another dying later in hospital, one militant was captured alive. Four Saudi special forces and a further ten hostages were wounded in the crossfire.

The five U.S. Foreign Service employees killed in the terrorist attack were Ali Yaslem Bin Talib, Imad e-Deen Musa Ali, Romeo de la Rosa, Mohammed Baheer Uddin, and Jaufar Sadik, were nationals of Yemen, Sudan, Philippines, India and Sri Lanka, respectively.

The attack underscored the ongoing vulnerabilities of Westerners to threats, terrorist actions, and the environs. In a communiqué posted in online publications such as Sawt al-Jihad (Voice of Jihad) and Mu'askar al-Battar (Al-Battar Training Camp), Al-Qaeda hinted at the symbolic nature of the U.S. Consulate attack, stating: "Know that the Mujahideen are determined to continue on their path, and they will not be weakened by what has happened to them."

Terrorist activities have persisted from 2004 to the present day. In 2004, there was an unsuccessful shooting attack on a U.S. Marine visiting the Saudi American Bank and an attempt to simultaneously explode car bombs at Saudi American Bank and Saudi British Bank branches in Jeddah on the anniversary of the 2001 "9-11" terrorist attacks on the U.S. On 26 August 2012, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry announced that terrorists were arrested in Jeddah who had been preparing explosives for attacks within the kingdom.

In 2022, the Houthis launched a missile attack to an Aramco facility near the Jeddah circuit, where the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was held.