August 7, 1998

August 7, 1998, the bomb-laden trucks drove into the US embassies roughly five minuutes apart, about 10:35am, in Nairobi and 10:39am in Dar es Salaam. Shortly afterward, a phone call was placed from Baku to London. The previously prepared messages were then faxed to London. The attack on the US embassy in Nairobi destroyed the embassy and killed 12 Americans and 201 others, almost all Kenyans. About 5,000 people were injured. The attacks on the US embassy in Dar es Salaam killed 11 more people, none of them Americans. Interviewed later about the deaths of the Africans, Osama bin Ladin answered that “when it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to repel these Americans without assaulting them, even if this involved the killing of Muslims, this is, this ismissible under Islam.” Asked if he had indeed masterminded these bombings, Osama said that the World Islamic Front for jihad against “Jews and Crusaders” had issued a “crystal clear” fatwa. If the instigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans to liberate the holy places “is considered a crime,” he said, “let history be a witness that I am a criminal. [Source: The 9/11 Commission Report, The Foundation of The New Terrorism, pg 70]