Analyzing terrorist attacks.

ANALYZING TERRORIST ATTACKS: A CASE STUDY OF THE 1998 U.S. EMBASSY ATTACKS IN EAST AFRICA
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Background of the Attacks
Al-Qaeda, the most notorious terror group of Islamic and Arab descent founded by Usama Bin Laden, once most wanted criminal, entered into a confrontation with the United States in the early 1990s due to several reasons. The involvement of the U.S. in the Gulf War of 1991 and the presence of the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia and Yemen did not sit well with Al-Qaeda (PBS 1998). The U.S. government had also convicted and imprisoned several people with ties with the Islamic terror group. In a bid to retaliate, Al-Qaeda, under the leadership of Usama Bin Laden embarked on a thoroughly organized strategy to strike America, not directly on American soil but through their embassies located in two major cities in East Africa, Nairobi, Kenya and Der-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Al-Qaeda through a well-choreographed plan sent agents to the East African nations who blended in with the locals since as early as 1993 before the execution of the concurrent attacks in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998.
The agents sent to East Africa were full of expertise in various fields, and an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified one individual as the leader for the concurrent attacks, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, alias Salem (PBS 1998). The concurrent attacks followed a similar playbook, where the perpetrators on both attacks had secured themselves residency in high-end residential areas with close proximities to the American embassies and purchased trucks that were then used to carry and detonate the bomb in front of the American embassies on the eve of the attack, that is 7th August 1998 at around 10 AM local time.
The attack at the embassy located in Nairobi had way more casualties than that in Dar-es-Salam. 214 fatalities were recorded following the bomb blast in Nairobi, with thousands of people wounded, maimed and others blinded by the shattering windows from the embassy building and the surrounding buildings (PBS 1998). The attack in Dar-es-Salam had 12 people dead and less than a hundred injured (PBS 1998). A large number of fatalities from the Nairobi embassy can be attributed to many factors, including inadequate training and drills for embassy employees in anticipation of terror attacks, the delayed response due to communication problems, and also the location of the embassy building that was situated at an intersection of two major roads in the city.
According to a report from the FBI, the bombs that were perceived to be homemade and assembled by one of the perpetrators were composed of trinitrotoline (TNT) as the main explosive component. The explosives in both attacks had TNT chemicals estimated at 2000 pounds, explaining the massive explosion witnessed in the two embassies. Fortunately, the U.S. intelligence agencies working in collaboration with the local authorities were able to capture some of the perpetrators except for those who died and some are still at large, most of whom were taken into U.S. custody. The almost simultaneous attacks in the American embassies in East Africa became an eye-opener to the U.S. fight against international terrorism.
Attacks, Acts of Int...