1998 United States embassy bombings
Encyclopedia
The 1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East Africa
n capitals of Dar es Salaam
, Tanzania
and Nairobi
, Kenya
. The date of the bombings marked the eighth anniversary of the arrival of American forces in Saudi Arabia. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought Osama bin Laden
and Ayman al-Zawahiri
to the attention of the American public for the first time, and resulted in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
list.
, Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya
and Mohamed Hassan Tita
were all rendition
ed from Albania to Egypt, with the cooperation of the United States; the four men were accused of participating in the assassination of Rifaat el-Mahgoub
, as well as a later plot against the Khan el-Khalili
market in Cairo. The following month, a communique was issued warning the United States that a "response" was being prepared to repay them for their interference.
According to journalist Lawrence Wright
, the Nairobi operation was named after the Holy Kaaba
in Mecca
; the Dar es Salaam bombing was called Operation al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, but "neither had an obvious connection to the American embassies in Africa. Bin Laden initially said that the sites had been targeted because of the 'invasion' of Somalia; then he described an American plan to partition Sudan, which he said was hatched in the embassy in Nairobi. He also told his followers that the genocide in Rwanda
had been planned inside the two American embassies."
Wright concludes that bin Laden's actual goal was "to lure the United States into Afghanistan
, which had long been called 'The Graveyard of Empires.'" According to a 1998 memo authored by Mohammed Atef
and seized by the FBI, around the time of the attacks, al-Qaeda had both an interest in and specific knowledge of negotiations between the Taliban and the American-led gas pipeline consortium CentGas
.
In May 1998, a villa in Nairobi was purchased by one of the bombers for the purpose of accommodating bomb building in the garage. Ahmad Salim Swedan purchased a beige Toyota Dyna
truck in Nairobi and a 1987 Nissan Atlas
refrigeration truck in Dar es Salaam. Six metal bars were used to form a "cage" on the back of the Atlas to accommodate the bomb.
In June 1998, KK Mohamed rented House 213 in the Illala district of Dar es Salaam, about four miles (6 km) from the U.S. Embassy. A white Suzuki Samurai was used to haul bomb components hidden in rice sacks, from House 213.
In both Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Mohammed Odeh supervised construction of two massive, 900kg destructive devices. The Nairobi bomb was made of 400 to 500 cylinders of TNT (about the size of soda cans), aluminum nitrate, aluminum powder and detonating cord. The explosives were packed into some twenty specially designed wooden crates that were sealed and then placed in the bed of the trucks. Abdel Rahman ran a wire from the bomb to a set of batteries in the back of the truck cab and then to a detonator switch beneath the dashboard. The Dar es Salaam bomb used a slightly different construction: the TNT was attached to fifteen oxygen
tanks and gas canisters, and was surrounded with four bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and some sand bags to tamp and direct the blast.
The bombings were scheduled for August 7, the eighth anniversary of the arrival of American troops in Saudi Arabia, likely a choice by Osama bin Laden
.
It is also believed that a similar attack was planned for the American Embassy in Kampala
, Uganda
but was foiled when Uganda
's Intelligence intercepted an explosives laden truck in the eastern town of Iganga
. This claim however has not been acknowledged.
On August 7, between 10:30 am and 10:40 am local time (3:30–3:40 am Washington
time), suicide bombers in trucks laden with explosives parked outside the embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and almost simultaneously detonated. In Nairobi, approximately 212 people were killed, and an estimated 4,000 wounded; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85. Seismological readings analyzed after the bombs indicated energy of between 3–17 tons of high explosive material
. Although the attacks were directed at American facilities, the vast majority of casualties were local citizens; 12 Americans were killed, including two Central Intelligence Agency
employees in the Nairobi embassy, Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy.
While driver Azzam drove the Mitsubishi Canter quickly toward the Nairobi embassy along with Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali
, local security guard Benson Okuku Bwaku was warned to open the gate immediately – and fired upon when he refused to comply. Al-Owhali threw a stun grenade
at embassy guards before exiting the vehicle and running off. Osama bin Laden
later offered the explanation that it had been Al-Owhali's intention to leap out and shoot the guards to clear a path for the truck, but that he had left his pistol in the truck and subsequently ran off. As Bwaku radioed to Marine Post One for backup, the truck detonated.
The explosion damaged the embassy building and flattened the neighbouring Ufundi Building where most victims were killed, mainly students and staff of a secretarial college housed here. The heat from the blast was channelled between the buildings towards Haile Selassie Avenue where a packed commuter bus was burned. Windows were shattered in a radius of nearly one kilometer. A large number of eye injuries occurred because people in buildings nearby who had heard the first explosion of the handgrenade and the shooting went to their office windows to have a look when the main blast occurred and shattered the windows.
Meanwhile, the Atlas truck in Dar es Salaam was being driven by Hamdan Khalif Alal, known as "Ahmed the German" due to his blonde hair, a former camp trainer who had arrived in the country only a few days earlier. The death toll was less than in Nairobi as the U.S. embassy was located outside the city center on Bagamoyo Road on a large plot with no immediate neighbours close to the gate where the explosion occurred.
Following the attacks, a group calling itself the "Liberation Army for Holy Sites" took credit for the bombings. American investigators believe the term was a cover used by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who had actually perpetrated the bombing.
Bill Clinton
ordered Operation Infinite Reach, a series of cruise missile
strikes on targets in Sudan
and Afghanistan
on August 20, 1998, announcing the planned strike in a prime time
address on American television.
In Sudan, the missiles destroyed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
, where 50% of Sudan's medications for both people and animals were manufactured. The Clinton administration claimed that there was ample evidence to prove that the plant produced chemical weapons, but a thorough investigation after the missile strikes revealed that the intelligence was false.
The United Nations Security Council
passed Resolution 1189
condemning the attacks on the embassies.
Both embassies were heavily damaged and the Nairobi embassy had to be rebuilt. It is now located across the road from the office of the World Food Programme
for security purposes. A few months after the attacks and subsequent American missile strikes in Afghanistan, the American energy company Unocal withdrew its plans for a gas pipeline through Afghanistan.
Within months following the bombings, the United States Department of State
Bureau of Diplomatic Security
added Kenya to its Antiterrorism Assistance Program (ATA), which was originally created in 1983. While the addition was largely a formality to reaffirm America's commitment to fighting terrorism in Kenya, it nonetheless sparked the beginning of an active bilateral antiterrorism campaign between the United States and Kenya. The U.S. Government also rapidly and permanently increased the monetary aid to Kenya. Immediate changes included a $42 Million grant targeted specifically towards Kenyan victims.
charges the following 21 people for various alleged roles in this crime.
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
n capitals of Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
and Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. The date of the bombings marked the eighth anniversary of the arrival of American forces in Saudi Arabia. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian physician, Islamic theologian and current leader of al-Qaeda. He was previously the second and last "emir" of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zumar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zumar to life...
to the attention of the American public for the first time, and resulted in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service Editor-in-Chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the...
list.
Motivation and preparation
The bombings are widely believed to have been revenge for American involvement in the extradition, and alleged torture, of four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) who had been arrested in Albania in the two months prior to the explosions. Between June and July, Ahmad Isma'il 'Uthman Saleh, Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-NaggarAhmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar
Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The Jewish lobby group ADL dubbed him the "propaganda chief" of the militant organisation...
, Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya
Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya
Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya is an alleged militant leader within al-Jihad, and ran the Albanian office for the group. He was one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA prior to the 2001 declaration of a War on Terror...
and Mohamed Hassan Tita
Mohamed Hassan Tita
Mohamed Hassan Tita was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad who was living in Albania. He was one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA prior to the 2001 declaration of a War on Terror....
were all rendition
Rendition
Rendition may refer to:*Rendition , a legal term meaning "handing over"*Extraordinary rendition by the United States, the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another*"Rendition" , an episode of Torchwood...
ed from Albania to Egypt, with the cooperation of the United States; the four men were accused of participating in the assassination of Rifaat el-Mahgoub
Rifaat el-Mahgoub
Rifaat el-Mahgoub was an important Egyptian politician, speaker of the Egyptian Parliament, and a member of the ruling National Democratic Party....
, as well as a later plot against the Khan el-Khalili
Khan el-Khalili
thumb|200px|An old chandeliers shop at Khan el-KhaliliKhan el-Khalili is a major souk in the Islamic district of Cairo. The bazaar district is one of Cairo's main attractions for tourists and Egyptians alike.-History:...
market in Cairo. The following month, a communique was issued warning the United States that a "response" was being prepared to repay them for their interference.
According to journalist Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, screenwriter, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law...
, the Nairobi operation was named after the Holy Kaaba
Kaaba
The Kaaba is a cuboid-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. The Qur'an states that the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham, or Ibraheem, in Arabic, and his son Ishmael, or Ismaeel, as said in Arabic, after he had settled in Arabia. The building has a mosque...
in Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
; the Dar es Salaam bombing was called Operation al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, but "neither had an obvious connection to the American embassies in Africa. Bin Laden initially said that the sites had been targeted because of the 'invasion' of Somalia; then he described an American plan to partition Sudan, which he said was hatched in the embassy in Nairobi. He also told his followers that the genocide in Rwanda
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
had been planned inside the two American embassies."
Wright concludes that bin Laden's actual goal was "to lure the United States into Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, which had long been called 'The Graveyard of Empires.'" According to a 1998 memo authored by Mohammed Atef
Mohammed Atef
Mohammed Atef was the alleged military chief of al-Qaida, although his role in the organization was not well known by intelligence agencies for years...
and seized by the FBI, around the time of the attacks, al-Qaeda had both an interest in and specific knowledge of negotiations between the Taliban and the American-led gas pipeline consortium CentGas
CentGas
Central Asia Gas Pipeline, Ltd. was a consortium formed in the 1990s to develop a project to build the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline from Turkmenistan's natural gas fields to Pakistan. The consortium had also considered an extension of the pipeline to the New Delhi area...
.
In May 1998, a villa in Nairobi was purchased by one of the bombers for the purpose of accommodating bomb building in the garage. Ahmad Salim Swedan purchased a beige Toyota Dyna
Toyota Dyna
The Toyota Dyna is a light truck for commercial use. In the Japanese market, the Dyna is sold alongside its twin called Toyoace. The original Toyoace of 1956 was an improvement over the Toyopet SKB Truck...
truck in Nairobi and a 1987 Nissan Atlas
Nissan Atlas
The Nissan Atlas is the name used in Japan for two lines of pickup trucks and light commercial vehicles sold by Nissan and built by UD Nissan Diesel, a Volvo AB company and by Renault-Nissan Alliance for the European market. The lighter range replaced the earlier Cabstar and Homer, while the...
refrigeration truck in Dar es Salaam. Six metal bars were used to form a "cage" on the back of the Atlas to accommodate the bomb.
In June 1998, KK Mohamed rented House 213 in the Illala district of Dar es Salaam, about four miles (6 km) from the U.S. Embassy. A white Suzuki Samurai was used to haul bomb components hidden in rice sacks, from House 213.
In both Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Mohammed Odeh supervised construction of two massive, 900kg destructive devices. The Nairobi bomb was made of 400 to 500 cylinders of TNT (about the size of soda cans), aluminum nitrate, aluminum powder and detonating cord. The explosives were packed into some twenty specially designed wooden crates that were sealed and then placed in the bed of the trucks. Abdel Rahman ran a wire from the bomb to a set of batteries in the back of the truck cab and then to a detonator switch beneath the dashboard. The Dar es Salaam bomb used a slightly different construction: the TNT was attached to fifteen oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
tanks and gas canisters, and was surrounded with four bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and some sand bags to tamp and direct the blast.
The bombings were scheduled for August 7, the eighth anniversary of the arrival of American troops in Saudi Arabia, likely a choice by Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
.
It is also believed that a similar attack was planned for the American Embassy in Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District.-History: of Buganda, had chosen...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
but was foiled when Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
's Intelligence intercepted an explosives laden truck in the eastern town of Iganga
Iganga
.Iganga is a town in Eastern Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative and commercial center of Iganga District and the district headquarters are located there. The district is named after the town.-Location:...
. This claim however has not been acknowledged.
Attacks and casualties
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
time), suicide bombers in trucks laden with explosives parked outside the embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and almost simultaneously detonated. In Nairobi, approximately 212 people were killed, and an estimated 4,000 wounded; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85. Seismological readings analyzed after the bombs indicated energy of between 3–17 tons of high explosive material
Explosive material
An explosive material, also called an explosive, is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure...
. Although the attacks were directed at American facilities, the vast majority of casualties were local citizens; 12 Americans were killed, including two Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
employees in the Nairobi embassy, Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy.
While driver Azzam drove the Mitsubishi Canter quickly toward the Nairobi embassy along with Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali
Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali
Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali is one of the four former al-Qaeda members sentenced in 2001 to life without parole for their parts in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. The others are Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, and Wadih el Hage. At the time of this writing, all four are in...
, local security guard Benson Okuku Bwaku was warned to open the gate immediately – and fired upon when he refused to comply. Al-Owhali threw a stun grenade
Stun grenade
A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade or a flashbang, is a non-lethal weapon. The first devices like this were created in the 1960s at the order of the British Special Air Service as an incapacitant....
at embassy guards before exiting the vehicle and running off. Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
later offered the explanation that it had been Al-Owhali's intention to leap out and shoot the guards to clear a path for the truck, but that he had left his pistol in the truck and subsequently ran off. As Bwaku radioed to Marine Post One for backup, the truck detonated.
The explosion damaged the embassy building and flattened the neighbouring Ufundi Building where most victims were killed, mainly students and staff of a secretarial college housed here. The heat from the blast was channelled between the buildings towards Haile Selassie Avenue where a packed commuter bus was burned. Windows were shattered in a radius of nearly one kilometer. A large number of eye injuries occurred because people in buildings nearby who had heard the first explosion of the handgrenade and the shooting went to their office windows to have a look when the main blast occurred and shattered the windows.
Meanwhile, the Atlas truck in Dar es Salaam was being driven by Hamdan Khalif Alal, known as "Ahmed the German" due to his blonde hair, a former camp trainer who had arrived in the country only a few days earlier. The death toll was less than in Nairobi as the U.S. embassy was located outside the city center on Bagamoyo Road on a large plot with no immediate neighbours close to the gate where the explosion occurred.
Following the attacks, a group calling itself the "Liberation Army for Holy Sites" took credit for the bombings. American investigators believe the term was a cover used by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who had actually perpetrated the bombing.
Aftermath and international response
In response to the bombings, PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
ordered Operation Infinite Reach, a series of cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...
strikes on targets in Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
on August 20, 1998, announcing the planned strike in a prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
address on American television.
In Sudan, the missiles destroyed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
The Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum North, Sudan, was constructed between 1992 and 1996 with components imported from the United States, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, India, and Thailand....
, where 50% of Sudan's medications for both people and animals were manufactured. The Clinton administration claimed that there was ample evidence to prove that the plant produced chemical weapons, but a thorough investigation after the missile strikes revealed that the intelligence was false.
The United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
passed Resolution 1189
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1189
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1189, adopted unanimously on August 13, 1998, after expressing its deep disturbance at the bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998, the Council strongly condemned the terrorist attacks and called on countries to adopt...
condemning the attacks on the embassies.
Both embassies were heavily damaged and the Nairobi embassy had to be rebuilt. It is now located across the road from the office of the World Food Programme
World Food Programme
The World Food Programme is the food aid branch of the United Nations, and the world's largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger worldwide. WFP provides food, on average, to 90 million people per year, 58 million of whom are children...
for security purposes. A few months after the attacks and subsequent American missile strikes in Afghanistan, the American energy company Unocal withdrew its plans for a gas pipeline through Afghanistan.
Within months following the bombings, the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
Bureau of Diplomatic Security
Bureau of Diplomatic Security
The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, more commonly known as Diplomatic Security, or DS, is the security and law enforcement arm of the United States Department of State. DS is a world leader in international investigations, threat analysis, cyber security, counterterrorism, security technology, and...
added Kenya to its Antiterrorism Assistance Program (ATA), which was originally created in 1983. While the addition was largely a formality to reaffirm America's commitment to fighting terrorism in Kenya, it nonetheless sparked the beginning of an active bilateral antiterrorism campaign between the United States and Kenya. The U.S. Government also rapidly and permanently increased the monetary aid to Kenya. Immediate changes included a $42 Million grant targeted specifically towards Kenyan victims.
Indictments
The current indictmentIndictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
charges the following 21 people for various alleged roles in this crime.
- Osama bin LadenOsama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
, killed in Pakistan in May 2011Death of Osama bin LadenOsama bin Laden, then head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit.... - Ayman al Zawahiri, at large
- Saif al Adel, at large
- Abdullah Ahmed AbdullahAbdullah Ahmed AbdullahAbdullah Ahmed Abdullah is an Egyptian national wanted by the United States for his part in the 1998 American embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and especially Nairobi, Kenya...
, at large - Anas al LibyAnas al-LibyNazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai'i alias Anas al-Liby , a Libyan, is under indictment in the United States for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He worked as a computer specialist for al-Qaeda.His aliases in the indictment are Nazih al Raghie and Anas al Sebai...
, at large - Fazul Abdullah MohammedFazul Abdullah MohammedFazul Abdullah Mohammed was a member of al-Qaeda, and the leader of its presence in East Africa as of November 2009. Mohammed was born in Moroni, Comoros Islands and had Kenyan as well as Comorian citizenship...
, killed in MogadishuMogadishuMogadishu , popularly known as Xamar, is the largest city in Somalia and the nation's capital. Located in the coastal Benadir region on the Indian Ocean, the city has served as an important port for centuries....
, SomaliaSomaliaSomalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
by Somali government troops in June 2011 - Ahmed Mohammed Hamed AliAhmed Mohammed Hamed AliAhmed Mohammed Hamed Ali is an Egyptian national wanted by the United States government in connection with the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi.-Aliases:-Life before the bombings:...
, killed in Pakistan by a round of airstrikes in 2010 - Fahid Mohammed Ally MsalamFahid Mohammed Ally MsalamFahid Mohammed Ally Msalam was a Kenyan terrorist conspirator, wanted in the United States for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania...
, killed in Pakistan by an American unmanned drone attack in 2009 - Sheikh Ahmed Salim SwedanSheikh Ahmed Salim SwedanSheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan was a fugitive wanted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was alleged to have purchased the Toyota and Nissan trucks used in the attacks, flying out of Nairobi to Karachi, Pakistan five days before the assault was launched...
, killed in Pakistan by an American unmanned drone attack in 2009 - Muhammad Atef, killed in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2001
- Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah, killed in Pakistan in 2006
- Mustafa Mohamed FadhilMustafa Mohamed FadhilMustafa Mohamed Fadhil is a citizen of Kenya and Egypt, who was indicted in the United States for his part in the bombings of their embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.-Accused activity:...
, unknown, but was reportedly captured in 2004 and is no longer being sought after by US authorities - Wadih el Hage, serving life without parole since 2001 at ADX Florence
- Mohamed Sadeek OdehMohammed OdehA Palestinian, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh is one of the four former al-Qaeda members sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for their parts in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He is in a supermax prison known as ADX Florence....
, serving life without parole since 2001 at ADX Florence - Mohamed al-'OwhaliMohamed Rashed Daoud Al-OwhaliMohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali is one of the four former al-Qaeda members sentenced in 2001 to life without parole for their parts in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. The others are Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, and Wadih el Hage. At the time of this writing, all four are in...
, serving life without parole since 2001 at ADX Florence - Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, arrested in Cape Town, South Africa on 1999, serving life without parole since 2001
- Khalid al Fawwaz, held in the UK since 1998
- Ibrahim EidarousIbrahim Hussein Abdel Hadi EidarousIbrahim Hussein Abdel Hadi Eidarous was an Egyptian militant who was alleged to have led the London-based chapter of al-Jihad. He was held in the custody of the United Kingdom from 1999, fighting extradition to the United States, where he was wanted in connection with the 1998 United States...
, held under house arrest in the UK since 1999. Died of leukemia in 2008. - Adel Abdel BaryAdel Abdel BaryAdel Mohammed Abd Almagid Abdel Bary is an Egyptian militant who, together with fellow Egyptian Ibrahim Hussein Abdel Hadi Eidarous until the latter's death, have been in the custody of the United Kingdom since 1999, fighting extradition to the United States, where they are wanted in connection...
, held in the UK since 1999 - Mamdouh Mahmud SalimMamdouh Mahmud SalimMamdouh Mahmud Salim is an alleged co-founder of the Islamist terrorist network al-Qaeda. He was arrested on 16 September 1998 near the German town Munich...
, arrested in 1998 in MunichMunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Germany, formely held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp before being transferred to ADX Florence. - Ahmed Khalfan GhailaniAhmed Khalfan GhailaniAhmed Khalfan Ghailani is a conspirator of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its...
, arrested in GujratGujratGujrat is a city in Pakistan. It is the capital of Gujrat District and the Gujrat Tehsil subdivision in the Punjab Province. People living in Gujrat refer to themselves as Gujratis, which sometimes leads to confusion with people from the Indian state of Gujarat which adjoins Pakistan...
, Pakistan on May 2004, serving sentence of life without parole at Metropolitan Correctional Center in Brooklyn, New York.