BY NAOMI CRAINE AND MEGAN ARNEY
President William Clinton ordered U.S. warplanes to launch
simultaneous assaults August 20 on an industrial area in
Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and in an area of Afghanistan
near the Pakistani border . U.S. officials said the air strikes
were in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of U.S. embassies
in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. U.S. defense
secretary William Cohen also asserted that Washington had
"compelling evidence" that further attacks were planned against
U.S. government targets, and that the bombardment was aimed at
disrupting those plans.
Speaking to the press soon after the assaults on Afghanistan and Sudan began, Cohen and Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, refused to say what kind of weaponry was used, whether there was any resistance, and what casualties there might be as a result. They claimed that the targets were "terrorist facilities" belonging to Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian who is reportedly living in Afghanistan.
The target in Khartoum was a factory in an industrial zone, though Cohen acknowledged it is surrounded by "other areas" of the city of 1 million people. Cohen alleged that the plant "could be producing precursor chemicals, which can be used to produce VX" nerve gas.
Interviewed by CNN just an hour after the air strikes began, Sudanese interior minister Abdul Rahim declared, "It's a factory for medical drugs. It has nothing to do with chemical weapons. We have no chemical weapons plants in our country." Calling the assault "an attack on our land and our sovereignty," Rahim said. Sudanese officials were "still assessing the damage. There were three or four attacks by two U.S. aircraft. We don't know if it's still going on."
U.S. officials claim the six sites struck in Afghanistan were part of a "terrorist training complex." They said hundreds of people may have been present at the time of the evening assault.
Clinton, who ordered the assault, made a pretense of rushing back to Washington from his vacation. But Cohen confirmed that the assault had been "planned for several days."
A CNN reporter cited an unnamed Clinton administration official as saying that the attack was a success in "disrupting the facilities," but that the "U.S.-led war against terrorism continues" and there "may be more strikes."
Washington's `antiterror' propaganda
Washington began cranking up its propaganda campaign against
"radical Islamic fundamentalists" after the August 7 bombings
of the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which left about
250 people dead and 5,500 injured. U.S. officials especially
cited their standard list of "terrorist" states - including
Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan - and initiated the roundup and
arrest of more than a dozen people from throughout the Mideast
and North Africa.
Cohen immediately threatened military retaliation, "swiftly and with significant force," against any government Washington declared was responsible for the attacks. As part of whipping up their "antiterrorist" campaign, Washington suspended routine operations at several embassies in Africa, as well as those in Pakistan, Switzerland, and Albania. Some 150 Marines and Navy commandos were deployed around the U.S. embassy in Tirana, Albania, August 16 after U.S. officials claimed they had "credible evidence" of a plan by a supposed international terrorist cell to bomb the building.
Several bourgeois figures began calling for a lower standard of proof in prosecuting those accused of "terrorist activities." Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a Washington policy institute, told the New York Times, "I don't believe you need the same level of proof as a court of law.... And if you punish the wrong guy for a particular act, that's not even so terrible, if you know for sure that this is a bad guy."
Immediately following the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, the U.S. state department assembled what Susan Rice, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, called "a routine roundup." About a dozen Iraqis and Somalis, for example, were detained in Tanzania August 10.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation told the press it was reviewing a list of 200,000 suspects and more than 3,000 organized groups in its computerized "database of terrorists." Meanwhile, the big-business newspapers ran sensationalist headlines, photos of mutilated bodies, and quickly regurgitated Washington's blame for the bombings on several Islamic organizations in the Middle East. The first such names included the Liberation Army of the Islamic Sanctuaries; Islamic Jihad; several Islamic informational and charitable organizations; Albanians fighting for independence in Kosova; and Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden, who was formerly backed by Washington when he organized right-wing militias to fight the Moscow-backed regime in Afghanistan.
By August 15 Washington had extradited from Pakistan to Kenya a man the U.S. government alleges carried out the bombing. Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, a 34-year-old Palestinian, was held for nine days by the Pakistani regime, which claims he made a confession, though there is no other evidence against him.
On August 18 the Pakistani government arrested two other men - one from Saudi Arabia, the other from Sudan - as suspects in the bombings. In the days leading up to the August 20 air strikes, bin Laden was increasingly referred to in the big- business press as Washington's main target.
U.S. troops held off volunteer rescue efforts
Among workers and others in Kenya, there is widespread
resentment over the unequal treatment given to those killed and
injured in the Nairobi bombing, in which 12 U.S. citizens and
more than 200 Kenyans died. U.S. Marines prevented Kenyan
volunteers who wanted to begin rescue efforts from entering the
building immediately after the blast. The U.S. ambassador
stated the reason was concern for the safety of these "good
Samaritans." But the New York Times reported August 13 that
U.S. officials said that the marines' role was to protect the
embassy's documents.
Several Kenyan newspaper editorials reported that U.S. citizens were taken from the embassy while Kenyans were left. In addition, Kenyans were crowded into jammed hospitals while Americans were transported out of the country.
Charity Ngilu, a leader of the Social Democratic Party in Kenya, said, "We did not see them [U.S. troops] first of all saving lives. They were more concerned with their building and property."
The same Times article quoted two unnamed women who were working in a camera shop. "The people are angry," said one woman. "They say the Americans are doing nothing. They didn't help bring out the bodies."
Bismarck Odida, 35, an electronics repairman, said "We are
angry with the Americans. They're troublemakers."
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