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| Kenyan US Embassy in rubbles during the 1998 terrorist attack. |
By JASON STRAZIUSO
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — As
President Barack Obama prepares to visit East Africa, nearly 15 years after
terrorists bombed two U.S. embassies here, security experts say that the region
still faces threats from militants.
Obama is scheduled on
Monday to visit Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital of Tanzania, which along
with Nairobi was the site of near-simultaneous embassy attacks in August 1998.
The attacks killed 224 people, mostly Kenyans, but also a dozen Americans.
Obama is likely to visit the memorial for the victims of the Tanzania attack.
The threat of terrorism
has increased since the Osama bin Laden-masterminded attacks, said a top Kenyan
security official who added that intelligence capabilities have also increased
and that the situation "is under control." Obama is not visiting
Kenya.
The latest U.S. State
Department Country Report on Terrorism for Tanzania said that the country has
not experienced a major terror attack since the embassy bombing, but that
Tanzania's National Counterterrorism Center said the June 2012 arrest of an
al-Shabab associate shows that terror groups have elements inside Tanzania.
Kenya, though, faces more
security concerns, given its shared border with Somalia. Scott Gration, the
immediate past ambassador in Nairobi, worries that security at the Nairobi
embassy has been "complacent" and may not have had adequate priority
in the recent past.
Gration, a retired U.S.
Air Force major general, told The Associated Press this week that during one
period of his yearlong tenure as ambassador the American security staff saw its
personnel numbers cut in half because of things like personnel changeovers
known as gaps.
"When it cuts down to
50 percent, including the head guy, that's a little bit much and to me that
indicates there wasn't the sense of urgency that there needs to be, or maybe
we've become a little bit complacent and arrogant, and that became an issue for
me," said Gration, who still lives in Nairobi and runs a technology and
investment consultancy.
"You know what
Kenya's like. There are grenades going off, in Mombasa, in Wajir, even in
Nairobi," he said.
The period of the 50
percent reduction occurred about four months prior to the attack on the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi, Libya, he said, in which four Americans were killed,
including the ambassador, on Sept. 11, 2012.
The Nairobi Embassy is
ranked as a "critical" threat posting for terrorism and crime by the
State Department.
"There are 179
countries (with embassies). Take your gaps other places, but don't take your
gaps in a high threat area. So it was surprising to me that we would take a
reduced capability in a place like Benghazi, Nairobi and other places, though I
think that this has been corrected by the investigations and by the media"
scrutiny, said Gration.
Hilary Renner, the State
Department spokeswoman for the Bureau of African Affairs, said she could not
comment on specific security operations, measures or personnel assigned to the
Nairobi Embassy.
"The safety and
security of U.S. personnel serving abroad is one of the State Department's
highest priorities," she said by email. "We continually assess and
evaluate the security of our missions, and make appropriate adjustments, as
needed."
Gration also declined to
say how many security personnel work in Nairobi. But an official familiar with
the security arrangements said the embassy has only about five American
security personnel, meaning a reduction of 50 percent would have been two or
three people. The embassy also employs Kenya security personnel. The official
said he was not allowed to be quoted by name.
Though no major attacks
against U.S. interests have occurred in East Africa since 1998, the region has
its share of terrorists, including al-Shabab militants in neighboring Somalia,
a group with ties to al-Qaida.
Also, Kenyan officials
last year arrested two Iranian agents said to be from Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, an elite and secretive unit, who were
found with 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of the explosive RDX. Kenyan officials have
said the two may have been planning attacks on American, British or Israeli
interests.
The new U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania were built far off the street, with multiple layers of
physical security, making a repeat of the truck bomb that tore through the
street-side Nairobi embassy in 1998 unlikely.
Renner said the U.S. works
closely with host governments on security matters. And the U.S.-Kenya security
relationship — in particular the relationship the FBI has with Kenya's
Anti-Terrorism Police Unit — is seen as strong.
The threat of terrorism is
high in East Africa, as a result of decades of instability in Somalia, said a
top Kenyan police official. The official, though, said he doesn't think
al-Shabab or al-Qaida can carry out large-scale attacks in Kenya, and instead have
resorted to small-scale attacks with grenades. The official spoke on condition
he wasn't identified because he was not authorized to share the information.
Kenyan police last
September said they disrupted a major terrorist attack after they found four suicide
vests, two improvised explosive devices, four AK-47 assault rifles and 12
grenades in Nairobi's main ethnic Somali community, Eastleigh.
More than three dozen
presumed terrorist incidents were reported in Kenya in 2012, mostly grenade
attacks, that were generally attributed to al-Shabab, according to the latest
U.S. State Department Country Report on Terrorism for Kenya. It said Kenya
showed persistent political will to secure its borders, apprehend terrorists
and cooperate in regional and international counterterror efforts.
The Benghazi attack has
greatly increased the focus on security on overseas embassies. The State
Department's diplomatic security budget increased from about $200 million in
1998 to $1.8 billion in 2008. But a recent Government Accountability Office
report found that there has been little long-range strategic planning for
embassy security.
Gration said he was in the
Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia during the 1996 bombing that killed 19 Americans.
He was also in the Pentagon when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.
Despite the criticism of
the U.S. security posture during a two-month period in Nairobi, he said:
"I truly believe the State Department is doing a great job. They're
working hard. There was some small aspects of things that I disagreed
with."
Gration was a national
security adviser to Obama's first presidential campaign and resigned his job as
ambassador in June 2012 ahead of a U.S. government audit critical of his
leadership.
Gration said that as he's
thought about security over the years, he's concluded that it's impossible to
protect oneself completely.
"So yes we're still
vulnerable when we're overseas or in America to an attack, and it can be well
organized, or it can be disorganized and they can still do a lot of
damage," Gration said. "So it's a false security to think we can ever
be free of attacks against our interests overseas or even in the
homeland."
___
Associated Press reporter
Tom Odula contributed to this report.
JASON STRAZIUSO
contributed to this report.
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