Photo By Erin Thompson | Aftermath of the U.S. embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya, 7 August 1998 (photo credit:...... read more read more
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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
7 AUGUST 1998
Twenty-five years ago on 7 August 1998, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, were the targets of terror attacks. Despite years of intelligence gathering on the threat of al-Qaeda in East Africa, the American intelligence community was unable to prevent the deadly attack.
The bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were the first orchestrated attacks by the World Islamic Front—regarded as synonymous with al-Qaeda. The group was formed by Osama bin Laden and Islamic Jihad leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Bin Laden later claimed the group chose these two embassies because of the large presence of American military personnel stationed there and the countries’ support of American invasions in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq and their relationships with Israel. Various other reasons were proposed in the months and years following the attacks.
The initial plan, codenamed Operation Holy Kaaba after the holiest Muslim site in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, involved only the Nairobi embassy. Ali Abdelsoud Mohamed, a former Egyptian army major, was the first to begin planning an assault on the Nairobi embassy in the early 1990s. While a member of various extremist groups, Mohamed was also serving as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent; a U.S. Army sergeant and instructor at the U.S. Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg (known as Fort Liberty since 2023), North Carolina; and a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant. Additionally, he had been interviewed in 1993 by Army counterintelligence agents following reports of his involvement with Islamic terror groups. Mohamed reportedly selected the Nairobi embassy as a target in 1993 because of Kenya’s role as an American military base during Operation RESTORE HOPE in Somalia between 1991–1992.
Mohamed presented his plan of attack to Osama bin Laden sometime in 1993, but the plans stalled for unknown reasons. Five years later, in the spring of 1998, a small al-Qaeda cell in Dar-es-Salaam became involved, under the name Operation al-Aqsa after the mosque in Jerusalem. Plans for the two-prong attack moved forward. The target date correlated to the eighth anniversary of Operation DESERT SHIELD, American intervention in Saudi Arabia following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
On the morning of 7 August 1998, a truck carrying explosive devices detonated outside the security gate in the rear of the embassy in Nairobi. Two hundred and thirteen people, including twelve Americans, died in the explosion and some 4,600 more suffered injury. At approximately the same time, another explosion rocked the embassy in Dar-es-Salaam, killing eleven and wounding approximately eighty-five.
After the attacks, the U.S. government quickly realized many indications and warnings in the years prior to the bombings had been mishandled by government authorities despite the best efforts of intelligence agents from both the State Department and the Department of Defense. Bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa, entitled: “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” was largely considered the final warning to American authorities in the Middle East and Africa of the ensuing violence. By that time, U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of the security threats being lobbed at American embassies in East Africa from several informants who came forward between 1995–1997. Although CIA interviewers were skeptical of many of the reports, they recommended the State Department implement extra security at the embassies. Most of these measures were temporary.
American national intelligence assessed the threat of al-Qaeda and bin Laden to be exceptionally high in the summer of 1998. Still, post-attack review boards concluded no credible intelligence provided immediate or tactical warning of the 7 August bombings. Despite numerous safety measures and threat assessments, al-Qaeda proved itself a dangerously effective opponent in this emerging form of warfare. Only in retrospect would the 1998 embassy attacks be regarded as a prelude for al-Qaeda’s attacks of 11 September 2001.
For the companion piece to this article, see Lori S. Stewart's "Sgt. Hobson Killed in Embassy Bombing." (link: https://dvidshub.net/r/qfdtzp)
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| Date Taken: | 08.04.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.04.2023 16:53 |
| Story ID: | 450747 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 1,325 |
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