TIMELINES: The US destroys two oil platforms of what Middle Eastern country Oct. 19, 1987?

Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011

THEN Oct. 19, 1987, in response to an Iranian anti-ship missile strike on an American flagged Kuwaiti oil tanker, the MV Seal Isle City, which is anchored in Kuwaiti waters, the United States destroys two Iranian oil platforms located in the Persian Gulf. According to the United States, the oil platforms are used by Iran to monitor shipments and gather intelligence regarding potential targets. In 1992, Iran files a lawsuit against the United States in the World Court demanding reparations for the oil platform attacks. NOW Last week, United States Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the press that U.S. federal authorities had foiled a terror plot by men supported by a secretive division of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Quds Force. According to Holder, the alleged terrorists planned to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States in addition to bombing the Washington embassies of both Saudi Arabia and Israel. The government of Iran promptly rejected the claims comparing the allegations to U.S. claims of weapons of mass destruction prior to the second U.S. war in Iraq.