Stephen Mburu
6 August 2008
Nairobi — The withdrawal of US and other internal forces from Somalia prompted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to shift the group's regional focus to alternative targets, such as Kenya.
These were considered by the group as "soft" American targets, according to the International Crisis Group.
Al-Qaeda's Somali connections were to prove instrumental in planning the major terrorist attack.
Towards the end of 1993, while conducting training in Somalia, al-Qaeda instructor Ali Mohamed was already casing targets in Nairobi. Team members rented an apartment in the Kenyan capital and by January 1994 were providing surveillance information on potential targets there and in Djibouti. In consultation with bin Laden, the US Embassy in Nairobi was identified as the target.
Wadih el-Hage, an American of Lebanese descent, took the lead in setting up al-Qaeda's Kenyan infrastructure, establishing an NGO, Help Africa People, and becoming closely involved with the Nairobi office of Mercy International Relief Agency (MIRA), a Dublin-based organisation headed by a Saudi dissident, Safar al-Hawali.
MIRA's Nairobi office was headed by a Somali whom captured terrorist Odeh described as a close associate of Osama during the al-Qaeda chief's sojourn in Sudan during the early 1990s.
In Somalia, MIRA supported al-Itihaad's regional administration in the Gedo region until it was shut down by Ethiopian raids in 1997, and apparently also served as a conduit for the travel of foreign jihadis to and from Somalia.
Grand jury
When el-Hage had to return to the US to appear before a grand jury investigating Osama, Fazul Abdullah Mohamed, a Comorean national with a Kenyan passport, replaced him as Nairobi cell commander. The cell's direct communications with bin Laden were channelled through the leader of the Mombasa network, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.
Fazul, one of the most wanted in the world, is now on the run in Kenya after escaping capture during a police raid at a Malindi hideout last Saturday.
On August 7, 1998, a massive bomb in a truck driven by "Azzam" detonated at the Nairobi embassy, and minutes later a second bomb exploded outside the Dar-as-Salaam embassy. The two bombs killed 225 people and wounded over 5,000. Only 12 of the dead were American; the vast majority were Kenyan.
Subsequent trials of al-Qaeda team members demonstrated that travel to and from Somalia had continued in the years prior to the bombings. US intelligence sources said "al-Qaeda's residual linkages with Somalia reflected the involvement of al-Itihaad cells led by Aweys and Hassan Turki in the preparations."
The US indicted the two for terrorism.
The Crisis Group reports that in the aftermath of the 1998 embassy bombings, several members of al-Qaeda's East Africa cell were arrested, but Fazul and Nabhan remained at large and began assembling a new team. In November 2001, less than two months after al-Qaeda's attacks in New York and Washington, Fazul assembled part of this new team in Mogadishu.
Regional security sources said that senior members provided small arms training, using locally bought Kalashnikovs, pistols and hand grenades, within the confines of a cramped apartment. Finances were handled by a Sudanese national, Tariq Abdullah (a.k.a. Abu Talha al-Sudani), operating between Somalia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
One month later the group dispersed. Fazul returned to the Kenyan coastal village of Siyu, where he had established a new identity and married a local girl. Meanwhile, under the leadership of Nabhan, one cell began to reconnoitre possible targets in the Mombasa area.
By April 2002, the choice had been made: Moi International Airport and the Paradise Hotel, a beachfront lodge in the coastal village of Kikambala, owned by Israelis and frequented by Israeli tourists. Under Nabhan's supervision, the team began to prepare crude bombs: two propane gas cylinders filled with homemade ammonium nitrate explosives.Back in Mogadishu, the remaining al-Qaeda team members--guided by occasional visits from Fazul--set about procuring additional materials for the operation. From the local arms market, they ordered two Strela 2 surface-to-air missiles that had found their way via Yemen onto the streets of Mogadishu.
In July 2002, the operation was nearly derailed when police reportedly arrested Fazul over a robbery in Mombasa but they did not realise he was a wanted terrorist with a $25 million bounty on his head, and he escaped the following day.A month later, Fazul smuggled the missiles across the Somali border.
By the last week of November 2002, preparations were complete, and the team divided into four elements: one, including Suleiman Ahmed Salim Hemed (a.k.a. Issa Tanzania) and Tariq Abdullah (a.k.a al-Sudani), remained in Mogadishu, where Somali associates had provided Suleiman with jobs at a local electronics firm and a hotel car pool.
Somali associates
A second group attacked the Paradise Hotel in a four-wheel drive vehicle owned by Nabhan. The group led by Fazul headed to an empty plot near the airport, within view of an unmanned police lookout. Statements recorded by Kenyan police indicate that another young Kenyan was sent to Lamu to prepare a boat for the team's return to Somalia.
On 28 November 2002, as Arkia airline flight 582 departed from Moi International Airport for Tel Aviv, Nabhan and another Kenyan, Issa Osman Issa, fired the two Strela missiles. Their primitive guidance systems and the two terrorists' lack of practical training apparently caused them to miss their target.
At the same time, two more Kenyans armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a Tokalev pistol, drove Nabhan's blue Pajero into the Paradise Hotel, killing fifteen and injuring about 80. The next day the remaining team members regrouped at the boat in Lamu. Two days later they crossed the border into Somalia."
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