August 7, 1998 bomb blast: How terrorists planned deadly Nairobi attack

Twenty-five years later, Kenyans are still asking: What had gone wrong that the security did not expose the terrorists’ network?

Unbeknown to many Kenyans, the terrorists had operated in the country for five years, ran businesses, registered companies, operated a non-governmental organisation, and befriended those they could.

Mohammed Odeh, one of the masterminds, had arrived in Mombasa in August 1994 and married a local woman. Nobody took note of this Palestinian from Jordan, even as he bought a fishing boat. For three years, Odeh was known as a fish merchant travelling from the Kenyan ports and masquerading as a poor man. In 1997, he lived in a mud-walled hut in Witu, north of Mombasa, and, at times, eking a living as a carpenter – though neighbours later said that he had scanty knowledge of carpentry.

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Nobody knew that this ‘carpenter’ was an Osama bin Laden operative in the region and that he owned a six-foot seven-tonne fiber-glass fishing boat that operated between the Kenyan and Tanzanian ports.

But this was not an ordinary boat. Al-Qaeda had purchased it for surveillance and would later be used to transport the bomb-making materials later used in building the bomb used by “Ahmed the German” to blow up the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam.

Police had gotten used to the fishing boat and presumed its innocence as it moved between the ports.

As a fish merchant, Odeh would transport his cargo to Nairobi, where he had orders in some top establishments – including the Hilton. As a businessman, the fish business masked his fishy side.

Al-Qaeda had known of Kenya’s weak company registration system. It was corrupt. It was inept. In 1993, they successfully registered a business under the name Asma Limited, with a nominal capital of Sh1 million.

Its registered office was in Kencom House, LR 209/4729 City Hall Way – a walking distance from the US Embassy at the junction of Moi and Haile Selassie avenues.

The records indicated that Khalid Fawwaz registered this company and later transferred it to Galal Fouad Elmeligy Abdeldaim, who held a fake identity card.

It would later emerge that Abdeldaim was Al-Qaeda’s military commander, Abu al-Banshiri.

In 1994, Mustafa Ahmed, another al-Qaeda operative, traveled to Tanzania and registered another company: Taba Investment Limited.

This company was a branch of bin Laden’s Taba Investment, initially registered in Sudan, where it had near-monopoly of exporting gum, sunflower, and sesame.

It also traded in sugar, canned goods, and soap. During this period, they had also registered another precious stone dealership, Tanzanite King, as a cover to cross the border with Tanzania.

This company was managed by an American jihadist, Wadh El Haji, a University of Louisiana graduate, who overtly operated as a gemstone dealer. The Lebanese-American who traveled with a US passport was Osama bin Laden’s primary contact in East Africa.

With a US passport, only a few people would doubt his credentials, and that is how he managed to register a non-governmental organisation, Help Africa People, that would be used as a conduit for money. It was a branch of a similar outfit registered in Germany. The NGO gave the terrorists a philanthropy cover in East Africa. That loophole would be known later and led to more scrutiny of the registration process. To run the NGO, El Haji had brought in a deputy – a Comoran national known as Fazul Mohammed. This was the person who was driving the lead vehicle on August 7, 1998, heading to the embassy. Had the intelligence checked, Fazul was well known in the region. He was involved in the 1993 downing of two US Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu that forced the US to pull its troops out of Somalia.

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With Fazul well settled in a Nairobi apartment, a new network of companies in place, and an NGO, the terrorists had all that was required to camouflage their aims. There was no visible indicator that these were terrorist outfits and that they were all connected to bin Laden. Intelligence would later grapple with this question, especially how they failed to connect the dots.

Unbeknown to them, Fazul was linked to another Nairobi-based NGO, Mercy International Relief Agency, operated by another terrorist, Safar Hawali. On its brochures, Mercy Relief stated that it was an emergency humanitarian agency that provided food, medicine, and shelter in times of crisis.

When these NGOs were deregistered in November 1998, there was an uproar by local Muslim leaders, who claimed that the government was targeting Muslim-led organisations. Supkem called on all Muslims to start gunut (special prayers) “until the government comes to its senses”. At the same time, the Islamic Party of Kenya accused the US government of being behind the closure. They would be embarrassed later when the masterminds and the networks would be revealed in court.

Through these NGOs, Fazul received the first batch of $7,000 from bin Laden to militarise the East African cells. The fishing boat came in handy for the terrorists would retreat to the sea for meetings – as they fished and exchanged “tools” – the codename used for TNT and the detonators.

The initial plan was to have the terrorists attack by 1996. But in May 1996, Abu al-Banshiri, one of the al-Qaeda commanders in Africa, died aboard MV Bukoba, the Tanzanian ferry that sank 56 kilometres off Mwanza, killing more than 800 people. Bin Laden didn’t believe that this was an accident and sent two of his men, El Haji and Fazul, to investigate. Meanwhile, the Nairobi-based NGOs would go to the ground offering humanitarian aid while collecting intelligence. Never had a network of terrorists operated with ease. It was a lesson. With the death of Banshir, Fazul was appointed the contact person for the Nairobi operation. The Mwanza investigation confirmed that MV Bukoba was an accident. More so, the presence of the terror group’s NGOs on the ground was evidence that they had so far hidden their intentions.

From his base in Afghanistan, bin Laden started preparing for the August 7 bombing. One of the jihads, Rashid Daoud al-Owhali– the co-driver in the bombing truck – had finished his training in kidnapping and assassination. Wadh el-Haji, the Nairobi-based gemstone dealer, bought a fake passport for al-Owhali and sent it to Baku, Azerbaijan. He left Nairobi for Pakistan to brief bin Laden on the East African cell in February 1997.

Meanwhile, Odeh was dispatched by bin Laden to Somalia to gather intelligence. He left Nairobi and opened a small furniture business in the tiny village of Witu, near the Somalia border. Witu was a perfect hideout. If anything went wrong, they would easily sneak into volatile Somalia.

The group’s cover was almost blown in September 1997 when a defector, Jamal Ahmed, reported to the US Embassy that the men working with the NGOs were al-Qaeda contacts. The CIA asked Kenyan intelligence to investigate. One night, “thieves” broke into the offices of one NGO and carted the computers.  The investigators would later say that they had nothing incriminating.

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In November 1997, the embassy received intelligence that some Kenyan-based terrorists were plotting to car-bomb the embassy. US Ambassador Prudence Bushnell wrote to Washington seeking additional security. She was assured that the threat had been eliminated. But she was not told that some CIA officers doubted that elimination.

It is now known that the CIA had raided the Lebanese-American El Haji’s home in Nairobi – though he had by that time left the city for Arlington, Texas. But by the time they arrived, Fazul had carted most of the sensitive files and only left a few on mosquito nets, water tanks, and drug distribution.

On December 15, 1997, Bushnell sent a report to Washington, warning that the embassy’s location “made it extremely vulnerable to terrorist attack” and had to be replaced with a secure building. On December 24, 1997, she sent another cable requesting a comprehensive review of the embassy’s security. In January 1998, the State Department wrote to her that the medium security rating was appropriate.

Though General Anthony Zinni, the commander of the US military’s Central Command, had warned that the embassy was vulnerable and offered to send his specialists to review the security status, he had been overruled by the State Department. Bushnell hired more security guards and increased the perimeter searches. It was the best she could do – as al-Qaeda kept up with their plot.

In May 1998, three months before D-Day, Fazul, with the help of one Sikander Juma, rented House No. 43 in New Runda. It was a secure four-bedroom villa with a large wall and manicured gardens. The property owner, Tamarra Ratemo, was told that Fazul wanted to settle his family and guests. Unbeknown to the landlord, the garage was to be the bomb factory.

Using a Toyota Dyna truck, Fazul started moving the bomb materials concealed as lobsters. He supervised the building of the two massive one-tonne devices of about 500 cylinders of TNT, fertiliser, and aluminum powder.

When the bomb was ready, al-Qaeda commander Abu Mariam ordered the operatives to leave the country. On August 2, the proposed bomber, Mohammed Rashid Al-Owhali, flew into Kenya via JKIA and was booked in Room 24 at Ramada Hotel in Eastleigh.

Still, the intelligence did not notice. When Fazul drove to Ramada on the same day to pick Owhali, he paid the full board, though the guest had only stayed for a few hours. They left for Runda.

The other bomber, Mohammed Ali “Azzam”, also flew in and went straight to Runda. The final meeting for the entire group was at Hilltop Hotel, near Kirinyaga Road, where Odeh had booked Room 102b using a fake Yemeni passport. Apart from the bombers, the group agreed to depart Kenya and meet in Afghanistan within a week.

Odeh was the last out of Kenya on August 6 aboard a Pakistani airline. He had shaved his beard, bought some cigarettes – to appear Western – and some cologne. It was a mistake.

The next day, al-Owhali, dressed in black shoes, a pair of blue jeans, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a blue cotton jacket, donned four stun grenades into his belt and a 9mm Bereta pistol into his jacket pocket. With Azzam, they boarded the Toyota Dyna. Fazul, who was in the lead vehicle, noticed that al-Owhali’s jacket was concealing the grenades. He asked him to remove the jacket as they drove towards the embassy.

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Owhali forgot that his pistol was inside the jacket. As Azzam approached the embassy’s drop bar, which was always manually opened for vehicles to get to the basement, al-Owhali alighted to scare the guard. Halfway, he realised that he had left his pistol inside the Toyota Dyna and that the guard had taken off. He threw one of the grenades toward the guard, which alerted everyone.

Meanwhile, Azzam drove the vehicle parallel to the embassy wall and detonated: A massive ball of fire, dust, and smoke shattered Nairobi’s peace. Odeh was on his way through the immigration in Karachi when a cautious immigration officer noticed that the bearded man on the passport was different from the bearer.

He was arrested. Al-Owhali was supposed to die but had not. He could not escape since his passport was still in Runda. Unsuspecting Good Samaritans rushed him to MP Shah Hospital for treatment. He had the cut on his forehead stitched and was permitted to leave. He still had the bullets in his pocket, but nobody noticed. He had no money. No papers. He was supposed to die.

On August 12, he was finally arrested in Nairobi. Fazul escaped to the Comoros and was eventually killed at a police checkpoint in Somalia on June 8, 2011. Both Ode and al-Owhali were flown to the US and given life sentences.

Lessons had been learned.

[email protected] @johnkamau1