Al-Qaida timeline: Plots and attacks

--May 30, 2004
Miilitants go on a shooting rampage at two oil industry office/residential compounds in the Persian Gulf coast city of Khobar, killing 22 people, mostly foreigners including one American.

--Dec. 6, 2004
Al-Qaida claims responsibility for an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, that left five non-American employees dead.

--Dec. 12, 2004

A bomb exploded in a Philippine market packed with Christmas shoppers Sunday, killing at least 15 people and shattering a months long lull in terror attacks in the volatile southern Philippines, where Muslim rebels are active.

The homemade bomb, concealed in a box, went off in the meat section of the market in General Santos, about 620 miles south of Manila. Officials immediately bolstered security in the predominantly Christian port city of 500,000 people, fearing more attacks.

--Dec. 29, 2004

Al-Qaida operatives launch an attack on Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Interior in Riyadh, hoping to topple the ministry's inverted pyramid structure.The attack fails with seven terrorists killed and one ministry officer seriously wounded.

--June 20, 2004

U.S. and Afghan authorities disclose the arrest of four Pakistani men on charges they were plotting the assassination of Zalmay Khalilizad, the US ambassador to Kabul.

—June 15, 2005

Chechen rebels try to derail a train on its way from Grozny to Moscow.  The train derails, but only 15 people are injured.

—July 7, 2005

Four suicide bombers detonate bombs on London Underground trains and a double-decker bus, killing 56 people in the worst terrorist attack ever in the UK and the greatest civilian loss of life since the blitz more than 60 years ago.  The bombers are all British nationals and three are British born.  Three are of Pakistani descent, the fourth a Jamaican who converted to Islam.

July 21, 2005

Two weeks after the first Underground bombing, four other would-be suicide bombers attempt an identical attack on three trains and a bus.  The bombs fail to go off and wound only one passenger.  Within days, all four men are identified and arrested.  Again, all are British nationals, this time of East African descent.

—July 23, 2005

Three bombs detonate in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing 63, the worst terrorist attack in that country’s history.  Two of the bombs detonated at resort hotels favored by Western tourists while the third went off in the city’s marketplace.  Egyptian authorities rounded up a number of suspects and later killed one of the country’s leading Islamists in a shootout.

—Aug. 19, 2005  

Attackers fire Katushka rockets in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba, narrowly missing a U.S. Navy ship, and killing a Jordanian security man in a dockside warehouse. Two rockets are fired into the nearby Israeli port city of Eliat, causing minor damage.

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Plots and attacks

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