East African Embassy Bombings

The synchronized attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans stationed at the Kenya embassy, and wounded more than 4,500 innocent bystanders. The six-and-a-half-month trial that resulted from the investigation's first arrests marked the first time the United States prosecuted terrorists for crimes committed off American soil. Prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., the embassy bombings trial revealed the fullest picture in a public forum of Al Qaeda, the militant Muslim organization founded by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, and its global conspiracy to kill Americans and destroy U.S. property.