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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Gambia in 1998 al-Qaeda terrorist plot |
| 2004-02-15 |
| Details that might partially vindicate deep-seated misgivings about al-Qaeda’s fledgling interest in The Gambia have thrown intriguing insights into the terror network’s least known abortive attempt to bomb the American embassy in Banjul in the summer of 1998. Holy War INC a non-hysterical, 300-page book published in the United States last year by CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen graphically outlined how in the weeks that followed the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Bin Laden zealots scattered in every part of Africa targeted the American embassy in Banjul as part of a wider terrorist plot to sabotage American interests wherever they might be across the continent. Special directives were given by members of al-Qaeda’s high echelon to bomb the embassy located along Kairaba Avenue, the main glitzy artery of the Greater Banjul Area, whose outer entrance was sealed off with steel railings as the United States gathered intelligence reports putting the terror network in the spotlight as the mastermind of possible attacks that were supposed to come after the American foreign missions in east Africa were bombed. The supposed attack on America’s Banjul embassy was delayed and subsequently put off partially because there was no "willing hands" ready to execute the plan, a situation blamed on the fact that there were no Gambians initiated either as members of al-Qaeda or associates of the terror network, which was blamed for the Nairobi and Dar es Salam bombings months before and the more spectacular attacks on New York and Washington three years later. This also coincided with increasing awareness on the part of American intelligence that Bin Laden followers were on the verge of striking American targets in Africa, and that eight African countries were at potential risks from al-Qaeda terror outrage namely The Gambia, Senegal, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Uganda and Mozambique. According to Holy War INC, American diplomatic facilities around the world received 650 "credible threats" from Bin Laden’s network in the six months following the 1998 embassy bombings. Since September 2001, there has been haphazard attempts to link The Gambia to al-Qaeda members and their activities although none came so close in terms of credibility until two years ago when some men of middle eastern extraction were arrested in The Gambia for alleged links to the terror network and subsequently taken to the US air force base in Bagram, Afghanistan where terror suspects are still being held. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |