1992 Aden hotel bombings

1992 Aden hotel bombings
Part of the al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen
LocationAden Mövenpick Hotel and Gold Mohur Hotel in Aden, Yemen
Coordinates12°48′23″N 45°1′42″E / 12.80639°N 45.02833°E / 12.80639; 45.02833 12°46′9″N 44°59′25″E / 12.76917°N 44.99028°E / 12.76917; 44.99028
Date29 December 1992 (1992-12-29)
TargetThree hotels housing United States Marines en route to Somalia
Attack type
Bombings, truck bombing
Deaths2
Injured7
PerpetratorsAl-Qaeda
No. of participants
2

On 29 December 1992, a series of bombings targeted two hotels which housed United States Marines en route to deploy in Somalia as part of Operation Restore Hope in Aden, Yemen. Orchestrated by Islamic Jihad in Yemen senior leader Jamal al-Nahdi, the bombs were planted at a restaurant in the Gold Mohur Hotel and the parking lot of the Aden Mövenpick Hotel, though the bomb at the latter hotel exploded prematurely. No U.S. Marines were harmed in the attacks, which instead killed an Austrian tourist and a hotel employee at the Gold Mohur, and injured seven others altogether. The next day, the U.S. government announced the evacuation of all U.S. forces still stationed in Yemen for the Operation in Somalia.

The bombings are sometimes considered to be al-Qaeda's first attacks against the U.S. due to the connections that Islamic Jihad in Yemen, including its leader Tariq al-Fadhli, had to Osama bin Laden financially. Bin Laden would later take credit for the attacks in 1998.