Mohamed, Khalfan Khamis (1973–)

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed was the first person convicted of a direct role in the August 7, 1998, bombing of the United States embassy in Dar es Salaam, [Page 389]Tanzania. On May 29, 2001, a federal jury in New York found him guilty of participating in the attack and of murdering the 11 people killed as a result of the explosion.

Mohamed was one of four defendants who went on trial in Manhattan federal court in January 2001 for the Tanzania blast and the coordinated, more lethal bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where 213 people were killed. He and his codefendants were all found to be part of a worldwide terrorist conspiracy led by the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and carried out by his Islamic militant organization, al Qaeda.

Mohamed, who was 25 at the time of the embassy bombings, grew up in mud-walled house on the rural island of Zanzibar, Tanzania, one of seven children of a farmer who grew sweet potatoes, lemongrass, and coconuts. Fatherless at seven, Mohamed never finished high school, and at 17 he moved to live and work with one of his brothers, who owned a grocery store in Dar es Salaam. There, through a mutual friend, Mohamed met an al Qaeda member who recruited him for religious and weapons training in Afghanistan. Mohamed underwent 10 months of training in 1994, but he was not invited to officially join the group. Mohamed returned to Tanzania in 1995, was sent on a training mission for “Muslim brothers” in Somalia in 1997, and was tapped for his job the following spring.

Trial testimony and physical evidence showed that in the summer of 1998 Mohamed rented the house in the Ilala district of Dar es Salaam, a half-hour drive from the embassy, where the bomb components were assembled and loaded into a used 1987 Nissan Atlas refrigeration truck. Using a flour mill, Mohamed helped grind the TNT, and with others, he loaded 20 wooden crates of the explosive powder onto the truck, along with 15 cylinders of acetylene and oxygen to enhance the explosion. Using money given to him by a cell leader, Mohamed had also purchased the Suzuki Samurai pickup truck that the conspirators used to ferry bomb-making materials to the house.

A defense attorney once referred to Mohamed's role as a “gopher,” stating that he didn't even know the target until five days beforehand. On the day of the attacks, Mohamed helped the Nissan bomb truck embark on its journey, riding in the passenger seat next to the Egyptian suicide driver. Once the truck got to the main road, Mohamed exited to return to the bombmaking house and clean it up. He heard the news of the explosion on TV, and left Dar es Salaam the next day by bus.

Using a Tanzanian passport bearing a friend's name, Mohamed settled in Cape Town, South Africa, and obtained a temporary residency permit after he applied for political asylum. He worked in a hamburger restaurant and lived with its owners, impressing them as a hardworking and pious young man. His year on the run ended when FBI agents traced the passport application back to him. Agents were waiting for Mohamed on October 5, 1999, when went to renew his South African residential papers.

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