Discover

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.

Contents

Attacks and casualties

Aftermath and international response

The indictment

Latest Developments

References

External links

Attacks and casualties

Car bombs in vehicles adjacent to the embassies were detonated almost simultaneously before 10:45 am local time (3:45 am Washington time).^[1] In Nairobi, about 212 people were killed and an estimated 4000 injured; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85.^[2]
Although the attacks may have been intended to kill employees of the United States government, most of the victims were African civilians: about 200 Kenyans were killed at the embassy in Nairobi, and 11 Tanzanians were killed in Dar es Salaam.

Aftermath and international response

Wreckage from the Nairobi bombing.

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 one had to be rebuilt.
Twenty days after the bombings, Uday Hussein (son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein) praised Osama Bin Laden as "an Arab and Islamic hero."^[3] Later, Richard A. Clarke, a top Clinton administration counterterrorism official, asserted that Saddam Hussein may have offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings.^[4]
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.

The indictment

The current indictment^[5] charges the following twenty-one people for various alleged roles in this crime.

Muhammad Atef	killed in Afghanistan in 2001
Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah	killed in Pakistan in 2006
Wadih el Hage	serving life without parole since 2001[6]
Mohamed Sadeek Odeh	serving life without parole since 2001[7]
Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali	serving life without parole since 2001[7]
Khalfan Khamis Mohamed	serving life without parole since 2001[7]
Khalid al Fawwaz	held in the UK since 1998
Ibrahim Eidarous	held in the UK since 1999
Adel Abdel Bary	held in the UK since 1999
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim	arrested in 1998, held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp[10]
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani	arrested in 2004, held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp[11]
Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil	probably held, but may still be loose
Osama bin Laden	at large
Ayman al Zawahiri	at large
Saif al Adel	at large
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah	unknown since attack
Anas al Liby	at large
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed	at large
Ahmed Mohamed Hamed Ali	at large
Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam	at large
Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan	at large

Latest Developments

On June 1, 2007, the USS Chafee fired its deck guns at suspected hideouts of an Al-Qaeda suspect by the name of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah who is one of the listed as responsible for the bombings, in the Puntland region of Somalia. It has not been reported if the shelling has been successful or not. ^[12]

References

1. U.S. Embassy Bombings
2. Online NewsHour - African Embassy Bombings
3. How Bad Is the Senate Intelligence Report? Very bad., ''Weekly Standard'', 25 September 2006
4. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 134
5. Copy of indictment USA v. Usama bin Laden et al., Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies
6. Four embassy bombers get life, CNN, 21 October 2001
7. c
8. c
9. c
10. Press release about 14 Guantanamo inmates, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
11. c
12. From MSNBC.com

External links

★ Rewards for Justice - Most Wanted Terrorists

★ US State Department website about attacks

★ Transcripts of Sentencing Phase of Embassy Bombers Trial

★ Primer on the attacks, PBS