Frankfurt terror plot: then and now

(AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer)

The images rushed back today -- as they often do for asap reporter Chelsea J. Carter with such news: Three suspected Islamic terrorists from an al-Qaida-influenced group were arrested on suspicion of plotting imminent, massive bomb attacks on U.S. facilities in Germany.

Today's AP story by David McHugh reported: A senior State Department official said German investigators had determined the Frankfurt International Airport and the nearby U.S. Ramstein Air Base were the primary targets of the plot but that those arrested may have also been considering strikes on other sites, particularly facilities associated with the United States.

For many this will be a new chapter, a new incident in the post-Sept. 11 world we now know. For Carter, though, this isn't something new. It's a reminder of events more than 20 years ago where Americans in Germany were targeted by terrorists with deadly consequences.

Follow the jump to read what Carter went through in Germany on Nov. 24, 1985.

(AP Photo/File)

It was Nov. 24, 1985. I was 16, a military brat working part-time at Burger King at a U.S. military shopping center in Frankfurt.

Hours earlier, my best friend Kari Quiton and I had walked through the newly erected gate and military ID checkpoint that encircled the compound -- a gate put up shortly after a car bombing in August at Rhein Main Air Force base that killed two people (that's the bombing in the photo above) and an earlier one in June at the Frankfurt airport.

The MP, a man only a couple of years older than us, flirted with my best friend.

"Don't you feel safe," he said. It was suppose to be a joke, albeit a morbid one.

Hours later, that feeling of safety was shattered.

I was on my lunch break in the break room, which was upstairs with a full view of the compound. It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I remember there being a lot of people on post. The parking lot was full.

I remember the next few minutes in pieces:

I remember the sky seemed to turn a funny pinkish-orange. I remember the concussion, watching people either fall or drop to the ground. And then I remember the noise, a shattering explosion that seemed to make the building rock.

And I remember sitting at the table, unable to move, and somebody yelling at me to get up, to be careful of the glass.

I don't remember the glass. I don't remember who was in the doorway. I don't remember picking up my belongings, though I must have.

I remember looking outside the broken window: People were running and black smoke billowed from the nearby gas station and tailor shop.

And I remember the sound of sirens.

Somebody grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out of the room, down the hallway, down the steps and into the main dining area.

I was shaking as people picked glass out of my hair and off my clothes. Then a manager came running in, telling us to leave the post through the back door and out the side gate, saying officials were worried about a second bomb.

Across the street at the undergound U-bahn -- subway stop -- I called my dad from a pay phone. I don't remember much of the conversation, except I told him I was OK.

Later that night, after two showers to get glass shards out my hair, I asked my dad the same thing over and over: "Why?"

I would learn days later, from news reports, that 35 people, including children, were injured in the car bombing that damaged a building and blew a crater in the ground.

I would learn from an AP report in Stars & Stripes that the two men who bought the BMW 525 sedan used in the car bombing told the dealer at a Frankfurt area used-car lot that they were from Rabat, the capital of Morocco.

And I would learn it was for the same reason that three men were arrested in Germany this week -- a hatred of Americans.

Days like today bring the memories back, and they bring phone calls from my mom and dad, from my high school friends who were there.

You see, we know this is nothing new. We just hope it never happens again.

-- Chelsea J. Carter