1998 American embassy bombings

The United States embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) were severely damaged by large bombs detonated in nearby trucks between 10:30 and 10:40 on the morning of Friday 7 August 1998, killing 213 people in Nairobi and a dozen in Dar-es Salaam. Nearly all of the dead were Africans: twelve Americans and 32 other Embassy employees were killed. An estimated 4000 were injured in the Kenyan capital and 85 in Dar es Salaam.

Accusing Osama bin Laden's Islamic extremist al-Qaeda group of responsibility, the U.S. retaliated with cruise missile attacks (August 20) on al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, which was alleged to be producing materials for chemical weapons. Despite the Sudanese government's earlier hospitality to bin Laden, the al-Shifa factory is widely thought to have been unconnected with weapons-related activity. Damage to al-Qaeda's infrastructure in Afghanistan is thought to have been minor.