Tunisian crashes truck into US embassy in apparent suicide bid

[Judi Lynn]

Tunisian crashes truck into US embassy in apparent suicide bid
October 1, 2003

Two vehicles drive past the United States embassy in Tunis. A Tunisian national crashed a pickup truck into the US embassy in Tunis during the night in an apparent suicide bid.

A Tunisian man crashed a pickup truck into the US embassy in Tunis in an apparent suicide bid after he was refused a visa which have would allowed him to be reunited with his American wife, US and Tunisian officials said.

Nabil Ben Jaballah, 39, "had set light to a gas canister but was only slightly injured" when his Ford Ranger pickup caught fire after slamming into the embassy wall late Monday, officials said.

An official at the US embassy confirmed to AFP that Ben Jaballah had rammed his vehicle into the wall of the compound in "what seems to be a suicide attempt".

Security guards outside the embassy pulled the man from the wreck of his burnt-out vehicle and arrested him.
He told investigators in Tunisia that he "wanted to commit suicide after he failed to obtain a visa which would have allowed him to return to the United States and be with his American wife." (snip/...)

http://www.terra.net.lb/wp/Articles/DesktopArticle.aspx?ArticleID=110820&ChannelId=4

[Paschall]

1. Thank you, Mssrs. Ashcroft and Ridge, for the compassion

<snip> Tunisian officials investigating the accident said Ben Jaballah entered the United States illegally from Canada in 1997, and settled in Boston, Massachusetts.
There, he married US citizen Denise Aikens-Young in March 2001, but did not take steps to put his papers in order with the immigration authorities until after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The US authorities rejected his application and he returned to Tunisia in March last year.

His wife joined him in the north African country, but returned to the United States "to try to put her husband's residency papers in order" from there. Ben Jaballah, meanwhile, applied for a resident's permit with the US embassy in Tunis, only to be rejected twice. </snip>