1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings and Denial on Jihad's Ideology

1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings and Denial on Jihad's Ideology
By Jeffrey Imm

Ten years ago, on August 7, 1998, Al-Qaeda conducted simultaneous car bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Over 250 died in these attacks, including 10 Americans at the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, and 6000 were reported injured. The August 7, 2008 East African Standard reports that new intelligence reports show that the Al-Qaeda terrorists planned in Nairobi "to use a device twice as big as the one that exploded." The Kenyan Daily Nation reported that 300 of the injured subsequently died. The majority of the victims of the embassy bombings were African civilians.

But despite that terrible human tragedy and the thousands of pages of documents, indictments, reports, and studies on the 1998 embassy bombings, we still have many today who refuse to confront the ideology behind Jihadist terrorism.

On the 10th anniversary of this tragedy, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila sought to reassure Kenyans that "this Government will do everything possible to prevent us from ever again being attacked." The Kenyan Daily Nation further reported that the prime minister also would not face any "specific groups" that might support such a Jihadist ideology. Prime Minister Raila did not offer any initiatives to challenge the ideologies of Islamic supremacism or Islamism that provides the basis for Jihadist action, but instead focused of "extremism" and "disaffection" as the causes for this tragedy.

As reported by the August 7, 2008 Daily Nation, Prime Minister Raila indicated: "But he ruled out the possibility of targeting specific groups on the war on terror, saying it would be counter-productive. 'It would generate the very disaffection and extremism on which terror thrives. It would be sheer madness to target it, or its followers. Kenya will never do so. Our sole target is terrorists.'" The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation also reported: "He dispelled allegations that the terrorists were acting in the name of Islam, or that the government's anti-terror efforts were directed at Muslims. Raila said the whole world knew that Islam was a religion of peace, adding that its very name was derived from peace."

AFP also reported that President Bush observed the anniversary of the attacks by stating that it "reinforces the need to confront the terrorists, to work with our allies to bring them to justice, and to prevent such attacks from happening again." Meantime, the U.S. 2008 National Defense Strategy is based solely on fighting "extremists," in keeping with the DHS/NCTC "terror lexicon" recommendations on not using any terms such as "Jihad," "Islamist," etc.

The alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of the 1998 embassy bombings, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, remains at large. In addition, at least seven others named in the embassy bombing indictment are also at large. Four of the Al-Qaeda bombers were sentenced to life in prison in 2001, and two are reportedly being held at Guantanamo Bay detention center (Ahmed Ghailani and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim). The Guardian reported on August 4, 2008 that "Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who has a $5m bounty from the US on his head, was reported to have left his hideout in the coastal resort town of Malindi shortly before a raid on Saturday night." In an ongoing manhunt in Kenya for Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, police have subsequently arrested five and are seeking another man for questioning.

With the 10th anniversary of the U.S. embassy bombings and ongoing manhunt for Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Kenyan Daily Nation has been publishing a series of reports that are allegedly from a diary kept by Fazul that was on a laptop captured by the Kenyan authorities. On August 4 and August 5, the Daily Nation published stories "Diary of a terrorist: Fazul's journey to Pakistan," "Fazul's military quest lands him in Afghanistan," and "Fazul joins camp to begin Jihad." In the alleged diary excepts, Fazul reportedly states that he was led to Islamic supremacism by "the Sudanese school of thought [that] emerged... [that] consisted of a mixture of Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist ideas." (This is the same Muslim Brotherhood that Peter Mandaville has urged engagement with in West Point publications and the same Salafists that Matthew Levitt has suggested "have credibility when it comes to deradicalizing others.") In addition, the McClatchy newspaper chain has done a feature article on the Daily Nation's "Diary of a terrorist" series. These "diary" reports could certainly be apocryphal. But legitimate or not, the willingness of the Daily Nation to publish such anti-American screeds without also offering a challenge to the ideology of the Islamic supremacism behind them is troubling.

The alleged diary quotes by embassy bomber Fazul Abdullah Mohammed reportedly include: "We must, of course, raise our children with the love of jihad. We have to raise a new generation with an education totally opposed to the Western education that is imposed on us."

This quote concisely demonstrates the root of the problem with Islamic supremacism in general as a supremacist ideology that rejects values of equality and liberty, and seeks to promote an alternative Islamic supremacist value system. Such Islamic supremacist goals remain the root cause and motivation behind the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, even though Prime Minister Raila and President Bush don't understand that as they continue to only tactically pursue "extremists" and "terrorists," without ever honestly asking why so many died.

Ten years is a long time to clearly remember such a tragedy.

"Never again" eventually becomes "never mind." Our national outrage at Jihadists and their ideology has transformed into national policies that merely seek to discourage "extremism," and many of our government leaders don't care that no one can define what "extremism" is.

If these are the circumstances 10 years after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, will we be having the same discussion on September 11, 2011 as well?


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Sources and Related Documents:

List of Documents

August 7, 2008 - Daily Nation: Terrorism: Govt pledges more vigilance

August 7, 2008 - Daily Nation: Never again, Raila assures Kenyans on anniversary of embassy bombing

August 7, 2008 - Daily Nation: Memory of August 7 1998 terror attack in Nairobi, ten years on.

August 7, 2008 - Daily Nation: Nairobi's day of horror recalled

August 7, 2008 - Daily Nation: Use al Qaeda's frozen assets to pay blast victims, US court urged

August 7, 2008 - AFP: Bush focuses on Al-Qaeda on anniversary of embassy bombings

August 7, 2008 - US News and World Report: A Grim 10th Anniversary of the Embassy Bombings

August 7, 2008 - Kenya Broadcasting Corporation: Kenyans commemorate 1998 bomb blast

August 7, 2008 - East African Standard: Terror: Shocking CIA report on blast - Al-Qaeda plotted to use a device twice as big as the one that exploded

August 6, 2008 - Daily Nation: How the Nairobi terror attack was planned

August 6, 2008 - Daily Nation: Police seek to quiz man over al-Qaeda network in E. Africa

August 5, 2008 - Kenya Broadcasting Corporation: Five arrested in Fazul terror pursuit

August 4, 2008 - AP: 3 Kenyans deny they hid terror suspect

August 4, 2008 - BBC: Kenya hunts for al-Qaeda fugitive

August 4, 2008 - Guardian: Al-Qaida fugitive gives Kenyan police the slip

FBI Information on Fazul Abdullah Mohammed

August 7, 2008 - McClatchy Newspapers: 'Diary of a terrorist' -- Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper publishing what it claims are excerpts from the diary of the man that the FBI says planned those attacks and others: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed

August 4, 2008 - Daily Nation: Diary of a terrorist: Fazul's journey to Pakistan

August 5, 2008 - Daily Nation: Diary of a terrorist: Fazul's military quest lands him in Afghanistan

August 5, 2008 - Daily Nation: Diary of a terrorist: Fazul joins camp to begin Jihad

U.S. State Department - Bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania -- August 7, 1998

PBS: African Embassy Bombings

PBS: African Embassy Bombings - Map

Copy of indictment USA v. Usama bin Laden et al., Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies

Wikipedia: 1998 United States embassy bombings - Indictment

Wikipedia: 1998 United States embassy bombings

October 21, 2001 - CNN: Four embassy bombers get life

October 18, 2001 - CNN: Transcript of sentencing hearing: U.S. v. Osama bin Laden

December 31, 2000 - US News and World Report: Putting Terror Inc. on Trial in New York -- The case against bin Laden's alleged followers

November 15, 1998 - US News and World Report: On Terrorism's Trail -- How the FBI unraveled the Africa embassy bombings -- by David E. Kaplan and Stefan Lovgren

August 28, 1998 - Electronic Telegraph: US takes custody of two embassy bomb suspects

August 8, 1998 - Electronic Telegraph: 80 killed in US embassy bombings

Wikipedia: Ahmed Ghailani

Wikipedia: Mamdouh Mahmud Salim

Wikipedia: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed

July 2, 2008 - Crossroads in History: The Struggle against Jihad and Supremacist Ideologies -- Counterterrorism Blog - by Jeffrey Imm

June 2008 - U.S. National Defense 2008 document (PDF)

June 2008 - West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) Sentinel: "Engaging Islamists in the West" by Peter Mandaville (page 5)

July 17, 2008 - The Way Back from Islamism -- Counterterrorism Blog - by Matthew Levitt

March 14, 2008 - National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) - Counterterror Communications Center (CTCC) Memorandum, Volume 2, Issue 10 - "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide to Counterterrorism Communication"

January 2008 - Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties - Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims

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