Seven Years After Al Qaeda Struck Nairobi
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Austin Bay Blog
Osama Bin Laden declared war on the US in February 1998, and in August of that year Al Qaeda struck the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The attacks (which occurred on August 7) stunned America, but stun didn’t translate into an effective global anti-terror strategy.
What did I get right and what did I get wrong about that attack? Here’s a copy of a column I wrote on August 11, 1998 — and it ran in the San Antonio Express-News on Friday, August 14. The death last Saturday (July 30, 2005) of southern Sudanese leader John Garang adds an interesting twist to the discussion of Sudan’s civil war.
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San Antonio Express-News
Regional conflicts engulf East Africa
by Austin Bay
08/14/1998
FRIDAY
The bomb blasts that killed some 250 people in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, have brought new attention to East Africa, in particular to Kenya’s frail internal political condition and its conflict with Sudan.
The fact that U.S. and Kenyan investigators are questioning about five people in the bombing - and that two, reportedly from a country other than Kenya, may be considered suspects - is encouraging.
While speculation has focused on Iranian radicals or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or anti-American terrorists (Saudi financier Osama bin Laden, for example) as the bombings’ orchestrators, regional African frictions may have played some role in the attacks.
Sudan’s Islamic radical government, headquartered in Khartoum, fits the profile of a prime suspect for supporting a terror strike on Kenya.
Sudan’s terrible civil war creates much of the problem. That conflict pits “Islamic Arab” northerners against “African tribal” southerners and has created near-perpetual famine conditions in the south, particularly along Sudan’s Ugandan and Kenyan borders.
Sudan’s southerners are predominantly animist or Christian. Several news and religious organizations have documented their dire circumstances. In 1996, a news team from the Baltimore Sun even documented slaving operations by northern Sudanese forces by purchasing a black African slave from an Islamic militia leader.
Since the fall of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, a Muslim, Uganda’s government has supported the anti-Khartoum rebel forces, particularly the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA. One intelligence source informed me that in some of Uganda’s aid “hooks through Kenya” because it is an easier route to reach the SPLA.
Kenya has long been a base for humanitarian aid flowing into the southern Sudan. The International Committee for the Red Cross operates a surgical hospital in Lokichokio, Kenya, administering to Sudanese refugees.
Often “non-lethal aid,” medicines, and food reach the SPLA and its supporters.
Kenya has turned a blind eye to Khartoum’s complaints about aid diversion, hence a “reason” for turning to terror. Why hit Nairobi instead of Uganda’s capital, Kampala? Uganda, in comparison to Kenya, has been much more security-conscious.
Sudan clearly has an interest in stirring up trouble for Kenya. Bin Laden and Iran’s extremist ayatollahs have tight Sudanese connections. Khartoum is also closely allied with Egypt’s Islamic radical movement and allegedly provided a haven for the teams of assassins that tried to kill Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak in 1995.
Any number of anti-American groups in the Middle East would gladly back a terror attack on the U.S. embassy in Kenya, which operates as a de facto U.S. ally by allowing the Navy to use its port of Mombasa as a support facility for operations in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. Kenya also has ties to Israel.
Kenya, with its wildlife preserves and Olduvai Gorge, has a healthy tourist trade. A terror strike on Kenya is an attack on the most lucrative component of its economy.
Kenya is becoming increasingly fragile. Many Kenyans fear that the “Rwanadan disease” of ethnic strife could spread - much to Sudan’s delight. Kenya’s aging strong man, Daniel arap Moi, has relentlessly favored his own tribe, the pastoralist Kalenjins, over other ethnic groups, particularly the more numerous Kikuyu.
Moi’s government is corrupt and unemployment is spreading. One source says the unemployment in Nairobi is close to 50 percent.
Why bomb Tanzania as well?
That might be a terrorist’s advertisement: “Beware. We are strong, sophisticated and well-funded enough to conduct simultaneous attacks.”
The Clinton administration has vowed that America will bring the terrorists to justice. Good. Perhaps the CIA’s covert operations wing will get a boost from the president and Congress. Human spies, not satellites, track terrorists.
Adding spies, however, may be the easiest response. Kenya is a vulnerable country with a corrupt autocrat at the helm. The bombs may be only the beginning of U.S. policy challenges in the region.
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