US court orders Iran to pay $879m over 1996 Saudi attack

A US judge has ordered Iran to pay another $879.1 million over a 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US airmen, ruling again that Tehran bore responsibility. President Donald Trump's administration hailed the judgment, the latest over the attack against Iran, which denies involvement and refuses to pay. Saudi Hezbollah, a militant group from the conservative Sunni kingdom's Shia minority, allegedly carried out the attack by driving an explosives-laden truck into the eight-story Khobar Towers complex where Western and Saudi forces were staying. The same judge in 2018 had ordered Iran to pay $104.7 million in a similar case over the Khobar Towers bombing. A separate court decision in 2013 ordered Iran to pay $591 million to the family of one of the US airmen who died. Iran, which has no diplomatic relations with the United States, has hit back that Washington should pay for past wrongdoing including support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war.