“On August 6, 1998, [Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Ayman al-] Zawahiri sent a fax to the office of the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat in Cairo reporting that an Islamic jihad cell uncovered by the CIA in Tirana, Albania (a Muslim country), had been sent to Egypt, where the terrorists had supposedly been brutally tortured. He warned that the United States would soon be punished: ‘We should like to inform the Americans that, in short, their message has been received and that they should read carefully the reply that will, with God’s help, be written in the language that they understand. The next day the two embassies were attacked in East Africa. More than 220 people were killed and 4,000 injured. The majority were not even Americans. Al Qaeda’s war on America had begun.”
– Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda, Page 60