U.S. embassy in Nairobi after the explosion, with the collapsed Ufundi Building
A Nissan Atlas truck, similar to that used in Dar es-Salaam
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 attacks.
Between June and July,
Ahmad Isma'il 'Uthman Saleh,
Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar,
Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya and
Mohamed Hassan Tita were all
renditioned
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.
Sheikh Ahmed 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.
Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah
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.
Attacks and casualties
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,
and one
Marine,
Sergeant Jesse Aliganga, a
Marine Security Guard at the Nairobi embassy.
While driver Azzam drove the
Toyota Dyna 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 hand grenade 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
Hamden Khalif Allah Awad,
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 respons
In response to the bombings,
President 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.
Memorial park at the site of the embassy in Nairobi, 2007
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