| 1998 United States embassy bombings | |
|---|---|
 U.S. embassy inNairobi after the explosion, with the collapsed Ufundi Building. | |
 | |
| Location | Nairobi, Kenya Dar es Salaam, Tanzania |
| Coordinates | 01°17′21″S36°49′36″E / 1.28917°S 36.82667°E /-1.28917; 36.82667 and06°47′21″S39°16′46″E / 6.78917°S 39.27944°E /-6.78917; 39.27944 |
| Date | August 7, 1998; 27 years ago (1998-08-07) 10:30 a.m. – 10:40 a.m.EAT (UTC+3) |
| Target | United States embassies |
Attack type | Truck bombs |
| Weapons | TNT,ammonium nitrate,pistol,stun grenade |
| Deaths | 224[a] |
| Injured | 4,000+ |
| Perpetrators | Al-Qaeda Egyptian Islamic Jihad |
| Motive | Islamist extremism,Anti-Americanism |
The1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998. More than 220 people were killed in two nearly simultaneoustruck bomb explosions in twoEast African capital cities, one at theUnited States embassy inDar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the other at theUnited States embassy inNairobi, Kenya.[1]
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed andAbdullah Ahmed Abdullah were deemed responsible with planning and orchestrating the bombings.[2][3][4]
Many American sources concluded that the bombings were intended as revenge for U.S. involvement in the extradition and alleged torture of four members ofEgyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) who had been arrested in Albania in the two months prior to the attacks for aseries of murders in Egypt.[5] Between June and July,Ahmad Isma'il 'Uthman Saleh,Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar,Shawqi Salama Mustafa Atiya, andMohamed Hassan Tita were allrenditioned from Albania to Egypt with the co-operation of the United States; the four men were accused of participating in the assassination ofRifaat el-Mahgoub, as well as a later plot against theKhan el-Khalili market inCairo.[6] The following month, a communique was issued warning the United States that a "response" was being prepared to "repay" them for their interference.[7] However, the9/11 Commission Report claims that preparations began shortly afterOsama bin Laden issued his February 1998fatwa.[8]
According to journalistLawrence Wright, the Nairobi operation was named after theKaaba inMecca; the Dar es Salaam bombing was called Operational-Aqsa inJerusalem, 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 thegenocide 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.'"[9]
In the second half of 1999, Osama bin Laden spoke to a crowd of graduates from a training camp in Afghanistan about the attacks and explained the reasons for targeting the Nairobi embassy. Bin Laden saidOperation Restore Hope in Somalia was directed from the Nairobi embassy and claimed the lives of 30,000 Muslims, the Southern Sudanese rebel leaderJohn Garang was supported from there and it was the largest American Intelligence center in East Africa.[10]
In May 1998, a villa in Nairobi was purchased by one of the bombers to enable a bomb to be built in the garage.Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan purchased a beigeToyota Dyna truck in Nairobi and a 1987Nissan 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.[11]
In June 1998, KK Mohamed rented House 213 in theIllala district of Dar es Salaam, about four miles (six kilometers) from the U.S. embassy. A whiteSuzuki Samurai was used to haul bomb components, hidden in rice sacks, to House 213.[12]
In both Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Mohammed Odeh supervised construction of two very large 2,000-pound (900 kg) destructive devices. The Nairobi bomb was made of 400 to 500 cylinders ofTNT (about the size ofdrink cans), ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, anddetonating cord. The explosives were packed into 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.[11] The Dar es Salaam bomb was of slightly different construction: the TNT was attached to fifteenoxygen tanks and gas canisters and was surrounded with four bags ofammonium nitrate fertilizer and some sandbags to tamp and direct the blast.[13]
The bombings were scheduled for August 7, the eighth anniversary of the arrival of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the early stages of thePersian Gulf War, likely a choice by Osama bin Laden.[14]
When bin Laden's bodyguard asked him after the attacks whether so many victims were really necessary, he replied referring toal-Qaeda's 1996 and 1998fatwas declaring war on America and Israel: "We warned the whole world what would happen to the friends of America. We weren't responsible for any victims from the minute we warned those countries."[15]
On August 7 between 10:30 a.m. and 10:40 a.m. local time (3:30–3:40 a.m.EDT), suicide bombers in trucks loaded with explosives parked outside the embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and almost simultaneously detonated.[16] A total of 213 people were killed in the Nairobi blast, while 11 were killed in Dar es Salaam.[17] An estimated 4,000 in Nairobi were wounded, and another 85 in Dar es Salaam.[18] Seismological readings analyzed after the bombs indicated energy of between 3 and 17short tons (3 and 15metric tons) ofhigh-explosive material.[19] Although the attacks were directed at U.S. facilities, the vast majority of casualties were local citizens of the two African countries. Twelve Americans were killed,[20] including twoCentral Intelligence Agency employees in the Nairobi embassy, Tom Shah (aka Uttamlal Thomas Shah) and Molly Huckaby Hardy,[21] and oneU.S. Marine, Sergeant Jesse "Nathan" Aliganga, aMarine Security Guard at the Nairobi embassy.[22][23]U.S. Army Sergeant Kenneth Ray Hobson II was one of the 12 Americans killed in the attack.[citation needed]
While Azzam drove the Toyota Dyna quickly toward the Nairobi embassy along withMohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali,[24][page needed] local security guard Benson Okuku Bwaku was warned to open the gate immediately and fired upon when he refused to comply. Al-Owhali threw astun grenade at embassy guards before exiting the vehicle and running off.[25][page needed] 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.[24][page needed] As Bwaku radioed to Marine Post One for backup, the truck detonated.[25][page needed]
The explosion damaged the embassy building and collapsed the neighboring Ufundi Building where most victims were killed, mainly students and staff of a secretarial college housed there. The heat from the blast was channeled between the buildings towards Haile Selassie Avenue where a packed commuter bus was burned. Windows were shattered in a radius of nearly1⁄2 mi (800 meters). 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.[26][27]
Meanwhile, the Atlas truck that attacked the U.S. Embassy at 36 Laibon Road, Dar es Salaam was being driven byHamden Khalif Allah Awad, known as "Ahmed the German" due to his blond hair, a former camp trainer who had arrived in the country only a few days earlier.[11] The death toll was less than in Nairobi as the U.S. embassy was located outside the city center in the upscale Oysterbay neighborhood, and a water truck prevented the suicide bombers from getting closer to the structure.[28]
Following the attacks, a group calling itself the "Liberation Army for Holy Sites" took credit for the bombings. U.S. investigators believe the term was a cover used byEgyptian Islamic Jihad, who had actually perpetrated the bombing.[29]
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In response to the bombings, PresidentBill Clinton orderedOperation Infinite Reach, a series ofcruise missile strikes on targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on August 20, 1998, announcing the planned strike in a prime-time address on U.S. television.[30]
TheUnited Nations Security Council passedResolution 1189 condemning the attacks on the embassies.[31]
Both embassies were heavily damaged and the Nairobi embassy had to be rebuilt. It is now located across the road from theUnited Nations Office at Nairobi for security purposes.
A memorial park was constructed on the former embassy site, dedicated on the third anniversary of the attack.[32] Public protest marred the opening ceremony after it was announced that the park, including its wall inscribed with the names of the dead, would not be free to the public.[32]
Within months following the bombings, theUnited States Department of StateBureau 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 U.S. commitment to fighting terrorism in Kenya, it nonetheless sparked the beginning of an active bilateral antiterrorism campaign by 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.[33]
In 2001, James Owens and others filed a civil lawsuit against Sudan for its role in the attack under theForeign Sovereign Immunities Act with the recently added 1996 amendments forstate-sponsored terrorism.[34] They argued that Sudan was at fault for providing sanctuary to the bombers prior to the attack. The lawsuit was prolonged over a decade, hampered in part by the lack of Sudan sending counsel at times, but further struggled when the legal system ruled that foreign nations had sovereign immunity fromcauses of action in civil lawsuits based on the current language of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in a 2004 case. Congress amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in 2008 to correct this and to allow its provisions to retroactively apply to existing lawsuits, including Owens' case. With that, hundreds more plaintiffs joined the suit, eventually with more than 700 parties listed.[35] By 2014, the district court awarded the plaintiffs over $10 billion.[36] Sudan, which had not appeared during the initial lawsuit, appealed the judgment, arguing it did not understand the US civil suit system and did not understand the consequences of not appearing, but also challenged the retroactive nature of the 2008 change to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.[37] The appeals court discounted Sudan's argument regarding its lack of understanding, and upheld the lower court's finding that Sudan was liable for the bombings, but ruled that the $4.3 billion of punitive damages could not be applied retroactively. The plaintiffs petitioned to theSupreme Court to appeal, and in May 2020, the Court ruled inOpati v. Republic of Sudan that the punitive damages could be retroactively applied, restoring the $4.3 billion that had been awarded at the District Court.[38]
In October 2020, PresidentDonald Trump announced that the United States would remove Sudan from theState Sponsors of Terrorism list, after they had agreed to pay $335 million in compensation to the families of victims of the embassy bombings.[39]
Following the investigation, an indictment was issued. It charges the following 21 people for various alleged roles in the bombings.[40] 20 of the cases have been resolved.
| Name | Disposition |
|---|---|
| Osama bin Laden | Killed inAbbottabad,Pakistan onMay 2, 2011 |
| Muhammad Atef | Killed inKabul,Afghanistan onNovember 14, 2001 |
| Ayman al Zawahiri | Killed in Kabul, Afghanistan onJuly 31, 2022 |
| Saif al Adel | Fugitive |
| Mamdouh Mahmud Salim | Serving a life sentence without parole in the United States[41] |
| Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah | Killed inTehran,Iran on August 7, 2020[42][43][44] |
| Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah | Killed in Naghar Kalai, Pakistan onApril 12, 2006 |
| Khalid al Fawwaz | Serving a life sentence without parole in the United States[45] |
| Wadih el Hage | Serving a life sentence without parole in the United States[46] |
| Anas al Libi | Died in 2015 while awaiting trial in the United States |
| Ibrahim Eidarous | Died in 2008 while under house arrest in the United Kingdom |
| Adel Abdel Bari | Served a sentence of 25 years imprisonment in the United States[47] |
| Fazul Abdullah Mohammed | Killed inMogadishu,Somalia by Somali government troops onJune 7, 2011[48] |
| Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali | Killed in Pakistan in 2010[49] |
| Mohammed Sadeek Odeh | Serving a life sentence without parole in the United States[50] |
| Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali | Serving a life sentence without parole in the United States[51] |
| Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil | Killed in Afghanistan (date of death unknown)[52][53][54] |
| Khalfan Khamis Mohamed | Serving a life sentence without parole in the United States[55] |
| Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani | Serving a life sentence without parole in the United States[56] |
| Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam | Killed in Pakistan onJanuary 1, 2009 |
| Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan |
Between March and October 2014, the D.C. District Court entered judgments of more than $10 billion on behalf of relatives and victims who had filed seven complaints after the attacks.
On appeal, Sudan advanced several arguments for its district court no-show. The county had to grapple with natural disasters and civil wars, and argued it did not understand the U.S. legal process enough to appreciate the consequences of its absence.
A D.C. federal judge Wednesday upheld $10 billion in damages to victims of the 1998 U.S. embassy terrorist bombings who had accused Sudan of supporting the attacks, declaring the country had no grounds to overturn the award after failing to respond to the lawsuits for four years.
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