“Hours after the [U.S. missile] attack [on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan on August 20, 1998], Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council issued a statement on Iraqi television condemning the attacks, and called for Arabs to ‘reeducate’ America about its policies in the region. The Iraqi regime accused the United States of ‘systematic international terrorism’ and vowed […]
8/20/1998
President Bill Clinton was looking to retaliate against bin Laden and al Qaeda following the August 7, 1998, African embassy bombings. “On August 17, 1998, CIA director [George] Tenet presented the White House with evidence that the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant on the outskirts of Khartoum [Sudan] was involved in the production of VX nerve […]
8/20/1998
“Tracing al Qaeda through communications intercepts was no longer easy. Once, Osama bin Laden had used a satellite phone for everything from positioning his forces to chatting with his mother in Saudi Arabia. But Osama had abandoned the practice after press leaks revealed that the August [20] 1998 TLAM [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile] strikes after […]
8/20/1998
“After the outcry over the [unsuccessful] missile strikes [on August 20, 1998], [President Bill] Clinton directed that the campaign against al Qaeda be a covert one conducted by the CIA, with an emphasis on disrupting their operations. He also authorized lethal force only if they found bin Laden or other top al Qaeda leaders.” – […]
8/20/1998
“…Pakistani officials, aware of the timing of the strike [President Bill Clinton’s retaliatory effort on August 20, 1998, for the African embassy bombings], had warned key Taliban and al Qaeda allies, even sending a senior ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] operative to personally tell bin Laden of the impending attack.” – Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page […]
8/20/1998
“The Clinton administration has been criticized for not following up on its first missile attack [on August 20, 1998] with an all-out effort to get bin Laden. But former officials said that they lacked the ‘actionable intelligence,’ or precise information about bin Laden’s whereabouts, to launch another attack. ‘The main focus was location, location, location,’ […]
8/20/1998
On August 20, 1998, one of the targets of Operation Infinite Reach, President Bill Clinton’s retaliatory strike for the August 7, 1998, African embassy bombings, was a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. It was supposedly tied to bin Laden and producing chemical weapons. “The plant was targeted based on a soil sample gathered by a CIA […]
8/20/1998
On August 20, 1998, “US adds bin Laden’s name to list of terrorists whose funds are targeted for seizure by US Treasury in order to shut down the financial pipelines that allegedly subsidize bin Laden’s terrorist activities.” – “Hunting Bin Laden; Who is Bin Laden & What Does He Want? A Chronology of His Political […]
8/20/1998
“The Navy’s cruise missiles that hit Osama’s training camps on August 20 [1998] did not kill Osama and indeed served principally to magnify his reputation to near-mythic proportions. The episode encouraged even more Muslim volunteers to flock to his Afghan training camps.” – Jonathan Randal, Osama, Pages 239-240 […]
8/20/1998
Following the August 7, 1998, African embassy bombings, “…the simultaneous cruise missile reprisals against Afghanistan and Khartoum that [President Bill] Clinton ordered thirteen days later, on August 20 [1998], and their unintended consequences coincided with the lowpoint of his presidency. The missiles struck with sophisticated military efficiency, but proved to be embarrassments for the administration. […]