TERRORISM/POLITICAL VIOLENCE

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

NAIROBI (EmergencyNet News) - U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials are reportedly saying that an Egyptian terrorist group financed by an infamous Saudi Arabian Islamic fundamentalist are the leading suspects in the twin bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But the officials in Washington warned that they don't expect any quick breakthroughs in pinning down the group or country behind the bombings.

Assistant FBI Director Thomas Pickard, the head of the bureau's criminal investigations division, said, "It will take at least four more weeks to complete the examination of both bomb sites and witness interviews, and from that we will develop leads."

Other officials and terrorism experts in Washington, however, said intelligence evidence increasingly suggests the synchronized bombings may have been the work of an Egyptian terrorist group supported by Osama bin Laden.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counterterrorism operations at the CIA, said that the attacks "have the fingerprints of Egyptian Islamic Jihad" and officials in the CIA's Operations Directorate and Counter- terrorism Center agree, and have circulated memos naming the Egyptian group, also known as al-Jihad, as the most likely culprit in the bombings. In July, the group warned that it was preparing to attack American targets.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, an exhaustive review of electronic intercepts of the traffic on bin Laden's communications network has uncovered evidence that he helped plan the attacks, along with some congratulatory messages after the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The officials also said the leader of Jihad, Aman Zawahiri, and Ahmed Rifai Taha, the leader of the al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, another radical Egyptian group, have joined bin Laden at the fugitive Saudi's base in Afghanistan. In addition, the officials said, U.S. reconnaissance satellites photographed bin Laden's Afghan camps being moved immediately after the attacks.

Cannistraro said that the bombs used in the African attacks, were similar to some used in the past by the Egyptian Jihad group. Evidence collected in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, he said, indicates the bombs used there were made of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil and probably detonated by a high explosive primer, perhaps Semtex, the Czech-made plastic explosive widely used by a number of terrorist groups.

According to Cannisraro, the size of the bomb crater outside the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, along with other evidence, indicates the bomb there could have been enhanced by a cylinder of compressed propane or another gas to help concentrate the force of the explosion. Egyptian Islamic Jihad has used such gas-enhanced devices to attack members of the Egyptian government.

(C)Copyright, EmergencyNet NEWS Service, 1998. All Rights Reserved. Further redistribution without permission is prohibited by law.

The ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT is a subscription publication of the EmergencyNet NEWS Service, which is a part of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute. This publication specializes in Security/Terrorism/ Intelligence/Military and National Security issues.

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