NAIROBI (Halbeeg News) – United States (U.S.) has increased the bounty on two men suspected to have been the masterminds of U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
The attacks that took place in 1998 killed 234 people including 12 U.S. citizens.
U.S. State Department has doubled rewards offered for information leading to the arrest of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah and Sayf al-Adl.
The government of United States said the bounty on the pair is being increased from $5 million to $10 million.
Since its inception in 1984, the programme has paid a total of some $145 million to more than 90 individuals who provided actionable information leading to the arrest of suspected terrorists or to the prevention of attacks.
Egyptian Nationals
This week, Kenya and Tanzania marked the 20th anniversary of devastating US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which signalled Al-Qaeda’s emergence as a deadly player on the global stage.
The diplomatic mission was devastated by a huge explosion on the morning of August 7, 1998, followed minutes later by another massive blast which wrecked the US embassy in Tanzania.
Around 5,000 injured — mostly African citizens were injured in the bombings.
Both men are Egyptian nationals now in their 50s who are wanted by the FBI for allegedly helping plan and execute the attacks that killed a total of 212 East Africans and 12 Americans.
Sayf al-Adl, a former colonel in the Egyptian army, is said to be an explosives expert and a member of al-Qaeda’s military committee.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah is alleged to have operated an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the years prior to the embassy attacks carried out by the terrorist organisation then headed by Osama bin Laden.
The twin attacks introduced the world to Al-Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden three years before the September 11 attacks in New York would make him a household name.
In May 2011, the White House announced that Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan by US special forces.
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