Nairobi — Kenya and Tanzania on Tuesday marked the 20th anniversary of deadly US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which signalled al-Qaeda’s emergence as a dangerous player on the global stage. In Nairobi, families of the victims and officials gathered for a ceremony at a memorial park in the centre of the Kenyan capital, built on the site of the US embassy. The diplomatic mission was devastated by a huge explosion on the morning of August 7 1998, followed minutes later by another massive blast that wrecked the US embassy in Tanzania. A total of 224 people were killed in the attacks and about 5,000 injured, mostly Africans. With two bombs loaded onto the back of trucks and a trail of carnage in East Africa, the world was introduced to Osama bin Laden three years before the September 11 attacks in New York would make him a household name. "Twenty years ago today, evil showed its terrible face in Kenya and Tanzania," US ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec told the gathering...
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