Sponsored by
The Backpack Everyone Notices
Your backpack says a lot before you even say a word. Find the newest Sprayground collection and start the school year your way.
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR, MASTERS OF TRIVIA
Trivia is more than a game; it’s a global tradition of knowledge and competition. Masters of Trivia’s tournaments have gone live, with 30 fast, multiple-choice questions. Most correct wins. Speed breaks ties. Compete worldwide for a $MOT token prize purse, plus valuable in-kind prizes.
Get the entry link and reminders by email — subscribe free at PlayMOT.
—— ON THIS DAY ——
AUGUST 7, 1998
Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
28 years ago
The bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998, coordinated attacks that killed more than two hundred people and injured thousands.
On the morning of August 7, 1998, within minutes of each other, two truck bombs exploded outside American embassies more than four hundred miles apart. In Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, a massive blast tore through the embassy and surrounding buildings in a crowded downtown district, killing more than two hundred people, the great majority of them Kenyans, and injuring thousands. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a second bomb killed eleven and injured dozens more.
The coordination of the two attacks, striking at almost the same moment in different countries, pointed to a sophisticated and well-organized network. The bombings were soon attributed to al-Qaeda, the militant group led by Osama bin Laden, who had recently declared war on Americans. For most of the world, the embassy bombings were an early and violent introduction to an organization and a form of transnational terrorism that would come to define the following decades.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
Al-Qaeda and the rise of transnational terrorism, the network whose coordinated 1998 embassy attacks foreshadowed the far larger assaults to come.
The devastation in Nairobi was especially severe because the embassy sat in the heart of a densely populated commercial district. The bomb collapsed a neighboring building and shattered windows across a wide area, and the overwhelming majority of the dead and wounded were Kenyan bystanders rather than American personnel. The disproportionate toll on local civilians would become a grim and recurring feature of such attacks.
The United States responded within weeks with cruise missile strikes on suspected al-Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, the latter target proving deeply controversial when doubts emerged about its links to weapons production. The bombings placed bin Laden and al-Qaeda near the top of American security concerns and led to indictments, a global manhunt, and a place for bin Laden on the list of most wanted fugitives.
In retrospect, the embassy bombings were a warning that went insufficiently heeded. They demonstrated al-Qaeda's ability to plan and execute coordinated mass-casualty attacks across borders, a capability that would be shown far more devastatingly on September 11, 2001. The morning of August 7, 1998, marked the point at which a form of stateless, globally networked terrorism announced itself to the world, and the response to it would shape international affairs for a generation.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
The attacks announced al-Qaeda to the world. The coordinated bombings demonstrated the reach and organization of a network that most people had never heard of, and that would soon reshape global security. They were an early and violent introduction to the transnational terrorism of the coming decades.
They revealed the disproportionate toll such attacks take on local civilians. The overwhelming majority of the dead and wounded in Nairobi were Kenyan bystanders, not the American targets. The pattern of local populations bearing the greatest cost of attacks aimed at foreign powers would recur repeatedly.
They were a warning that preceded far larger attacks. The capabilities demonstrated in 1998 pointed directly toward September 11, 2001. The embassy bombings showed what al-Qaeda could do, and the world's response, or lack of one, would be reexamined intensely after the later catastrophe.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On the morning of August 7, 1998, two truck bombs destroyed American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania minutes apart, killing more than two hundred people, most of them local civilians. The attacks introduced al-Qaeda to the world and foreshadowed a form of terrorism that would define the years to come.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“These bombings were a declaration of a war that most of the world had not yet noticed.”
— A common assessment of the 1998 embassy attacks
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the 1998 US embassy bombings, the coordination of the attacks, the emergence of al-Qaeda, and the events they foreshadowed?
