August 8, 2008, - 10:47 am

Ten Years Ago Yesterday, Our Embassies Blown Up By Al-Qaeda

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
In the midst of far “more important” stories, like the corporate Chi-Comm fraud known as the Olympics, America seems to have forgotten an important and sad anniversary, the bombings of two U.S. embassies by Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in East Africa.
On August 7, 1998, bombings at American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed more than 200 people and wounded 5,000 in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam (which ironically means “House of Peace”).
Although a U.S. citizen–former Bin Laden secretary Wadih El-Hage–was convicted in the bombings, the main plotter of the attacks, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed a/k/a Haroun Fazul, has never been caught.

tanzaniaembassybombing.jpg

U.S. Embassy in Tanzania After Bombing

And another American, Sami Al-Arian associate Tariq Hamdi, provided the satellite battery which enabled Bin Laden to enact the attacks. Hamdi roamed freely around America for years–helping Sami Al-Arian and appearing as a “Middle East Journalist” on Peter Jennings’ ABC Newscasts post 9-11. He was allowed by U.S. authorities to flee the country before they dared indict him. When they finally did indict him in 2005, he was working for “the new Iraq” in Switzerland. From my August 8, 2005 column on Jennings:

According to prosecutors and documents in the 1998 trial of the Bin-Laden bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa (the 7th anniversary of which was yesterday), Hamdi provided Bin Laden a satellite battery instrumental in those bombings. He’s also an unindicted co-conspirator with Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian, who employed him at his Islamic “charity” fronts at the University of South Florida. Hamdi was also an employee of a Saudi-funded charity raided by Customs agents for allegedly laundering billions to Qaeda through the Isle of Man.

U.S. Customs Service agents were investigating and building a case against Hamdi, but when Customs was dumped and became ICE, that–like many important terrorism investigations–was dumped, too.
Yes, little has been done by America–though the Clintons did far more than the Bush Administration–to locate and go after those who mass-murdered Americans and African locals who helped America at our embassies.
Now, go back to the Olympic hype . . . so you can watch the Arafat-T-shirt-wearing Palestinian Olympic team win zero medals.
**** UPDATE: Here is a pic of the mural that bombing victims and their relatives put up, yesterday, to mark the embassy bombing in Kenya. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, Bin Laden is in the middle of all these pics of injured humans, and that’s good since he caused death and destruction. But, on the other hand, he’s a star in it, as if honored. I also wish they had the guts to put an Islamic crescent in there, which, frankly, should be more prominent than Bin Laden. He’s the man, but not the ideology, behind the attacks. That ideology will long survive him and lead to more bombings.
What do you think of the mural?

embassybombingsmural.jpg






8 Responses

This is a valuable reminder of the 10th anniversary of this terrorist event, & so far I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else. It is much more important than the Olympic fraud.
Bush’s behavior and pandering to the Chinese is disgraceful. His pro forma complaint about lack of rights is an insult to all of is. He doesn’t really mean it any more than his pro forma statements against gay marriage, the Shiavo murder, or any other events where he has so much contempt for us that he thinks we will be happy forever with a stupid pro forma statement.
And all the terrorist countries (sic) besides the Palestinians that are there!

c f on August 8, 2008 at 12:26 pm

Ten Years Ago Yesterday, Our Embassies Blown Up By Al-Qaeda
And Clinton continued to played golf, assault women, traveled the country partying and hosting fundraisers…all the while, the barbarians were inside the gates.

Thee_Bruno on August 8, 2008 at 12:36 pm

While one certainly would expect the likes of Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda to work together- the closeness of al Arian and Hamdi suggests the two organizations are the same group.
No proof of that of course but sometimes with terror and terror groups, we let our adversaries dictate where the the fight is against and who we are fighting by permitting their use of names for their various groups to blind us to the possibility many of these groups are a single root with many branches.
After all, Ayman Zawahiri was, and probably still is, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Hamas has been revealed to be the Gaza branch of the group. PIJ, Mr. Al Arian’s team was the part of Hamas that decided to solely focus on murder without even bothering with a political wing. This brings us very quickly to the uncomfortable possibility that MSA and US MB are all part of a single evil organization. We would treat these groups much differently if thought there was at most one degree of separation between these folks and al Qaeda.
[AG: YUP, THEY ARE THE SAME. PALESTINIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD IS JUST A PALESTINIAN SUBSET OF AL-QAEDA/MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, JUST AS HAMAS IS. AND EGYPTIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD, FROM WHICH BOTH PIJ AND HAMAS EMANATED, ARE SYNONYMOUS WITH MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, WHICH GAVE BIRTH TO AL-QAEDA THROUGH AL-ZAWAHIRI. DS]

ayatollah ghilmeini on August 8, 2008 at 1:15 pm

I think OBL is depicted as some sort of messiah/hero in that mural, and the people around him are followers who’ll be rewarded in Paradise.
He’s seen in the forefront, clearly with the intent to overwhelm the mural, with a robe draped over one shoulder (as if he is a holy man dressed in religious robes), and what appears to be an AK-47 draped over the other. It’s as if OBL is depicted as some sort of holy crusader in his jihad against the West, albeit incurring casualties/martyrs in the process. In islam, dying for the cult is something to strive for in life and is one of the most sacred things a muzlum can do. I think those casualties are being glorified as martyrs and OBL is leading the way for islam’s conquest of the West…by any means necessary
You have to remember, these are sick people to begin with. Their thinking is twisted and illogical. What we find reprehensible in the West, is something they glorify in islam.
[TB: EXACTLY. LIKE I SAID, “HE’S THE STAR, AS IF HONORED.” DS]

Thee_Bruno on August 8, 2008 at 2:17 pm

Re the “wounded”: over 300 innocent people were either blinded, or suffered crippling eye injury. And that is in a part of the world where Disability protection is non-existent. Our media needs to interview some of those poor souls. There present lot isn’t good.
The above is one reason why my heart sank when I heard the President say, “islam is peace,” while American bodies were being pulled out of the WTC and Pentagon. His moronic military reaction has given the world Taliban-Lite and Shiite-Power in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the name of plebiscitory rewards to Islamofascists – muddled with the “democracy” label – he put troops on 24-7-365 patrols through IED and sniper nests, with no strategic objective and limited ability to respond to mortal danger. Further, his refusal to annihilate the enemy – in deference to his Saudi owners – will cause the election of the first Anti-American US President. Future generations of Americans will hold pilgrimages to spit on the grave of George Walker Bush.

supercargo on August 8, 2008 at 6:33 pm

Want to read how bin Laden’s Paleo mentor believed that the muslim deity viewed murderous jihad?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3737091/The-Scales-of-Allah?ga_related_doc=1
Azzam was murdered in 1989. Bin Laden blamed the CIA. Apparently, the 2 terrorists would hold hands while they walked. Kinda like Bush and Pig-One of the House of Saud.

supercargo on August 9, 2008 at 5:31 am

Future generations of Americans will hold pilgrimages to spit on the grave of George Walker Bush.
Posted by: supercargo at August 8, 2008 06:33 PM
If Bush family does not sell America off for more petro-dollars, like they have been doing since Prescott Bush: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D6fxyOtVeI

Alert on August 9, 2008 at 10:48 am

Thanks.

baldilocks on August 9, 2008 at 4:50 pm

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