Destroyer USS Chafee targets suspect in 1998 Africa embassy bombings
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Jim Miklaszewski
Chief Pentagon correspondent
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By Jim Miklaszewski
Chief Pentagon correspondent
NBC News
WASHINGTON - The destroyer USS Chafee fired her deck guns at two or three suspected "high-value terrorist targets" in the Puntland area along the northern coast of Somalia on Saturday, U.S. officials told NBC News. The three suspects are accused of taking part in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
According to the officials, the U.S. had "actionable intelligence” gathered by U.S. Special Operations Forces and local tribal leaders that the suspects were in the area.
Out of fear that the suspects would leave the area, the decision was made to order the
strike from the Chafee, which fired 20 five-inch rounds from her deck guns.
The Chafee was the U.S. military's closest asset, the officials said. Airstrikes would have come too late.
There has been no battle damage assessment to determine if any of the suspects were killed or wounded in the attack, the officials told NBC News.
One of the suspects, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, had also been targeted in December in airstrikes by U.S. AC-130 gunships in Somalia.
FBI via Getty Images FILE
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a suspected terrorist wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Nairobi, is shown in a photo released by the FBI on Oct. 10, 2001, in Washington.
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He is the leader of the East Africa cell of al-Qaida and is believed to be the mastermind of the al-Qaida attacks in 1998 on U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed more than 200 people.
He was also the author of the 2002 attacks on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and the attempted shoot-down of an Israeli charter plane that same day.