1998 U.S. embassy bombings

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In the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings (August 7, 1998), hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous car bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks, linked to local members of the al Qaeda terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden, brought bin Laden and al Qaeda to international attention for the first time, and resulted in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.

Along with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, the Embassy Bombing is one of the major anti-American terrorist attacks that preceded the September 11, 2001 attacks. The comparatively restrained response of the Clinton Administration, at the time embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, which included the cruise missile strikes of Operation Infinite Reach and the arrest and prosecution of some of the perpetrators, has sometimes been cited as a factor in emboldening al Qaeda to undertake the September 11th terrorist attacks of 2001 and also raised political debate in the United States about whether to respond to terrorism with a military or law enforcement paradigm.[1]

Contents

Attacks and casualties

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Car bombs in vehicles adjacent to the embassies were detonated simultaneously at 10:45 am local time (3:45 am Washington time). In Nairobi, where the embassy was located in a busy downtown area, 213 people were killed and an estimated 4000 injured; in Dar es Salaam, the embassy was further from the city center, and the attack killed at least 12 and wounded 85.

Although the attacks may have been intended to kill employees of the United States government, and killed several U.S. diplomats, almost all of the victims were African civilians. 32 Kenyans and twelve Americans were killed in Nairobi, and eight Tanzanian Embassy employees were killed. The remainder of the dead were visitors, passers-by, or people in neighboring buildings.

The Islamist terrorist network al Qaeda claimed responsibility for both incidents.


Aftermath and international response


In response to the bombings, U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered Operation Infinite Reach, a series of cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20 1998, announcing the planned strike in a primetime address on American television.

Investigations into the embassy bombings were conducted by the FBI and Kenyan and Tanzanian authorities. A list of suspects was drawn up and several men were charged for their involvement in the bombings.

The embassies were heavily damaged, and had to be rebuilt. One didn't have to be rebuilt however

Saddam Hussein's official press in Iraq praised Osama Bin Laden as "an Arab and Islamic hero."[2], and later, Richard Clarke, a top Clinton administration counterterrorism official, asserted that Hussein had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings.[3].

In Afghanistan, then under the control of the Taliban, a court declared on November 20, 1998 that Osama bin Laden was "a man without a sin" in regard to the bombing.

Capture, prosecution, deaths of perpetrators

In a federal trial in New York City that ended in June 2001, Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali, Mohammed Odeh, Wadih el Hage, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed were convicted of perpetrating the Nairobi bombing and were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Two Egyptian citizens, Ibrahim Hussein Abdel Hadi Eidarous and Adel Mohanned Abdul Almagid Bary, whose fingerprints were allegedly found on the letters claiming responsibility for the bombings, were arrested in London in 1999 by Scotland Yard at the request of the U.S. They were extradited and jailed.

Other alleged conspirators in custody include Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi dissident who had been living in London since 1994. Al-Fawwaz was accused by the U.S. of helping Osama bin Laden to coordinate the attacks, and was ordered to be extradited. He denied the charges and remains in custody in London pending an appeal.[4],[5].

Anas Al-Liby was thought to have been captured in Afghanistan in 2002 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan but it was later proven to be false, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is believed to have been captured in Pakistan in 2004, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, whose brother was one of the suicide bombers, and who helped another of the bombers to get a Yemeni passport, is currently in the custody of the U.S. at an undisclosed location.

Mohammed Atef, indicted on November 4, 1998 for his role in orchestrating the attacks, was later reported killed by U.S. bombs during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

Saif al-Adel is reportedly in the custody of the Iranian government.

Still at large

See also

External links

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