Page 139 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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East African Embassy Bombings———113

to make building luxury homes less lucrative for 12 Americans stationed at the Kenya embassy, and
construction companies. wounded more than 4,500 innocent bystanders. The
On October 18, 1998, in Vail, Colorado, ELF six-and-a-half-month trial that resulted from the inves-
carried out its largest ever action, setting fire to five tigation’s first arrests marked the first time the United
buildings and four ski lifts at a resort, causing more States prosecuted terrorists for crimes committed off
than $12 million in damage. The act of arson was American soil. Prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks
committed against Vail Resorts, a large development on the World Trade Center in New York City and the
company planning to expand operations into 2,000 acres Pentagon near Washington, D.C., the embassy bomb-
of Rocky Mountain wilderness. This area is the habitat ings trial revealed the fullest picture in a public forum
of the North American lynx, a threatened species. of Al Qaeda, the militant Muslim organization founded
Mainstream environmentalists had protested the expan- by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, and its global con-
sion since 1993, but, by 1998, clear-cutting had begun. spiracy to kill Americans and destroy U.S. property.
Craig Rosebraugh, the ELF spokesperson, later
delivered an ELF statement that read, “This action is THE ATTACKS
just a warning. We will be back if this greedy corpo-
ration continues to trespass into wild and unroaded The coordinated embassy bombings targeted the most
areas.” He later stated that the Vail arson was not an visible symbols of American presence in the capital
act of terrorism but “an act of love.” cities of Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tan-
After Vail, some environmentalists claimed that the zania. On August 7, 1998, around 10:30 A.M., a cov-
arson was actually a government attempt to discredit ered pickup truck loaded with TNT and aluminum
the environmental movement, especially as no mem- nitrate exploded near the rear entrance of the U.S.
bers of ELF were ever arrested. Most ELF members embassy in downtown Nairobi. It ripped off the back
had successfully evaded authorities, claiming the FBI of the three-story embassy and caused tremendous
“can’t see them because they don’t believe in elves.” structural damage to the building, which had been
In January 2001, however, Frank Ambrose, an ELF constructed in the 1970s to withstand an earthquake.
member, was arrested in Indiana for timber-spiking The ruined embassy remained standing, but the seven-
more than 100 trees. In February, three New York story office building next door, Ufundi House, col-
teenagers associated with ELF pleaded guilty to lapsed into a pile of concrete rubble. One survivor
setting a series of fires at home construction sites that would be buried for two days.
encroached on farmland in Long Island. While the fed- Around 10 minutes later, about 400 miles to the
eral crackdown on all forms of ecoterrorism, beginning southeast, a refrigeration truck, packed with TNT
in the late 1990s, has affected ELF, individual cells along with oxygen and acetylene gas canisters, deto-
remain active, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, nated near the front gate of the U.S. embassy in Dar es
perpetrating more than 50 major actions, usually includ- Salaam. The explosion killed five security guards and
ing arson and significant property damage, each year. six other Tanzanians working inside the charred build-
ing. Debris was thrown as far as 600 yards from the
See also ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT; EARTH FIRST!; bomb crater.
ECOTERRORISM
Claims of responsibility for the bombings, writ-
ten in Arabic, arrived on the fax machines of news
Further Reading
media outlets in Doha, Qatar; Dubai, United Arab
Scarce, Rik. Eco-warriors: Understanding the Radical Emirates; and Paris, France. They stated that the
Environmental Movement. Chicago: Noble, 1990. bombings were intended to force the “evacuation of
all American forces, including civilians, from the
land of the Muslims in general, and the Arabian
EAST AFRICAN Peninsula in particular.” Investigators would later
EMBASSY BOMBINGS learn that the Islamic extremists behind the blasts
deliberately chose to strike in the morning when
many observant Muslims would be en route to
The synchronized attacks on American embassies Friday prayers at a mosque and therefore out of
in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including harm’s way.