page_title: 1998 United States embassy bombings
section_title: Attacks and casualties
hierarchical_section_title: 1998 United States embassy bombings / Attacks and casualties
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the aftermath of the Kenya embassy bombing. (source)
context_page_description: The 1998 United States embassy bombings were attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998. More than 200 people were killed in nearly simultaneous truck bomb explosions in two East African cities, one at the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the other at the United States Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
  The attacks, which were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and their terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, to the attention of the U.S. public for the first time, and resulted in the Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden on its ten most-wanted fugitives list. The FBI also connected the attack to Azerbaijan, as 60 calls were placed via satellite phone by bin Laden to associates in the country's capital Baku. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah were credited with being the masterminds behind the bombings.
context_section_description: 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 laden with explosives parked outside the embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and almost simultaneously detonated. 213 people were killed in the Nairobi blast, while 11 were killed in Dar es Salaam. An estimated 4,000 in Nairobi were wounded, and another 85 in Dar es Salaam. Seismological readings analyzed after the bombs indicated energy of between 3 to 17 short tons (2.7 to 15.4 metric tons) of high explosive material. Although the attacks were directed at U.S. facilities, the vast majority of casualties were local citizens of the two African countries. 12 Americans were killed, including two Central Intelligence Agency employees in the Nairobi embassy, Tom Shah (aka Uttamilal Thomas Shah) and Molly Huckaby Hardy, and one U.S. Marine, Sergeant Jesse Aliganga (aka Nathan Aliganga), a Marine Security Guard at the Nairobi embassy. U.S. Army Sergeant Kenneth Ray Hobson II was one of the 12 Americans killed in the attack.
  While 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 collapsed the neighboring Ufundi Building where most victims were killed, mainly students and staff of a secretarial college housed here. 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 nearly ¹⁄₂ mile (800 m). 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 that attacked the US Embassy at 36 Laibon Road, Dar es Salaam was being driven by Hamden 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. 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.
  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 by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who had actually perpetrated the bombing.
caption: Wreckage from the Nairobi bombing
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