Kenya 'susceptible to attacks'
2008-08-06 08:06
Nairobi - Kenya and Tanzania mark the 10th anniversary of devastating US embassy bombings on Thursday amid fresh embarrassment over Kenya's failure to arrest one of the main suspects.
Ceremonies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam will commemorate the victims of the August 7 1998 bombings, which killed a total of 224 people and injured some 5 000, almost all of them Africans.
Despite the passage of time, Kenya "remains potentially susceptible to attacks from terrorists in the region", according to the United States.
Ten years on, many of those responsible for the attacks, and the bombing of a hotel in Mombasa in 2002, "remain at large and continue to operate in the region", according to the website of the US embassy.
The point was brought forcefully home at the weekend when a top al-Qaeda suspect accused of being behind the attacks slipped through a Kenyan police dragnet in the coastal town of Malindi.
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was reported to have sneaked into the country from neighbouring Somalia to seek treatment for a kidney ailment.
Three suspected aides have been arrested and charged with harbouring a criminal, but Mohammed himself remains at large a decade after the bombings.
A senior official of Kenya's Anti-Terrorism Police Unit said the country remained at risk of terrorist attacks despite increased security.
'We are on high alert'
"Kenya has always been a target for terror attacks and we have really learnt a lot, we are on high alert," said the official who requested not to be named.
Past memorials have been low key with many victims protesting lack of compensation for their loss.
At Nairobi's memorial park, site of the former US embassy where 213 people, including 12 Americans and 34 local embassy staff, died on that fateful Thursday morning, survivors lamented a lack of continued support by the Kenyan and American governments.
"This being the tenth year, nothing has changed in that there is no support from so many angles (such as) the Kenyan government, the American government," said Victims' association head Paul Wala.
"We blame them (the US) for the bombing. Without their embassy being here in Kenya we would not have been bombed," he told AFP.
"Many have died from the injuries, many have died because they don't have medical support, many have died because they cannot meet their obligations," said Douglas Sidialo, 38, now blind following injuries sustained during the blast.
Washington says it has already spent about $42m in medical treatment, school fees, counselling, and reconstruction services for the thousands of Kenyan and Tanzanian victims and is reluctant to pay out more.
The ceremonies are expected to start at 07:00 GMT, about the time the blasts went off.
Twin commemorations will be held in Nairobi at the United States embassy and at a memorial park in the city, which Prime Minister Raila Odinga is expected to attend.
In Dar es Salaam, where 11 people were killed and 70 injured, a ceremony will be held at a memorial park.
- AFP