Oklahoma City bombing

The Oklahoma City bombing took place on April 19, 1995, when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was destroyed by a powerful explosion set off by Timothy McVeigh, a U.S. citizen with a virulent hatred of the American government. It produced the heaviest casualty count of any terrorist incident in the U.S. before the 9/11 attacks, killing 168 people, injuring hundreds, destroying a substantial office building, and damaging other nearby structures.

Operational technique

McVeigh alone placed the truck containing the bomb, although he had one collaborator, Terry Nichols, in fabricating it. The device was improvised, using approximately 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate-fuel oil explosive.

Emergency response

The explosion taxed local resources to their limits, at the edge of a mass casualty incident. Some victims almost certainly survived the explosion but died before they could be extricated; certain areas were too unstable for an immediate approach by rescuers. Some trapped victims needed to have limbs amputated, with little or no anesthesia, to be removed from wreckage.

Perpetrators and response

The reasons for the attack were never totally clear, although McVeigh and Nichols appear to have had revenge for the Federal raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. They were influenced by a militant groups generally characterized as of the extreme right; the incident has some parallels to events in a novel, The Turner Diaries.

Janet Napolitano, now the United States Secretary for Homeland Security and then a United States Attorney, directed the Federal prosecution, which sentenced McVeigh to death; he was later executed.

Conspiracy theories

As with many major national incidents, a number of conspiracy theories have come into existence regarding the attack and the FBI investiagion that followed. These include accusations of a link between McVeigh and the Elohim City white nationalist compound, and accusations that the federal authorities knew of McVeigh's plans and pulled out FBI and ATF agents, leaving only civilian workers.