On August 7th, 2020, at approximately 7:00 p.m., Habib Daoud (as he was then known) looked out his front window, and glanced up and down the street for anything appearing out of place – a car parked but occupied, or someone loitering on the sidewalk.  Once satisfied there was no threat, Habib prepared to exit his upscale townhouse, located in the Pasdaran District of Tehran, with his adult daughter Maryam.  Habib and Maryam looked up and down the street one more time, Habib donned a Melli ballcap, signaling his support for the Iranian national soccer team, he slipped a compact pistol into his outer right jacket pocket, and Maryam pulled a headscarf tightly over her head. Today seemed like any other day, in the long seventeen years since Habib had moved to Tehran, the quiet upscale neighborhood was still bustling with people heading home from work, school or Mosque.  Habib called to Maryam that it was time to go and the two quickly walked to their white Renault L90 sedan parked in the covered car port.  Exiting the driveway, Habib paused to again scan the street.  He pulled aggressively into rush hour traffic, accelerating the powerful Renault, weaving in and out of the Friday evening traffic, and frequently checking the rearview mirror, more out of training and habit than necessity.  Maryam checked her cell phone and quietly cursed as she read an al Jazeera news report about new diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.  

 

On August 7th, 1998, at 10:30 a.m., suicide bombers in trucks laden with explosives parked outside the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and simultaneously detonated.  213 people were killed in the Nairobi blast, with 11 killed in Dar es Salaam. Over 4,000 people were wounded.  The East Africa Embassy bombing cases became known in the FBI as “KENBOMB and TANBOMB” based on their respective geographic locations.  As I returned to the FBI field office from my morning run along the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., the summer heat and humidity already oppressive, my SWAT pager started chiming loudly and urgently flashing “1111” which meant all available operators assemble in the team room ASAP. I quickened my pace to get back to the office.

            

Habib dropped Maryam off in front of the Bamika market where she liked to buy a particular Persian yogurt pastry only available from the devout baker on Jumah Fridays after evening prayers.  Ten minutes later Maryam got back into the car with Habib, she placed a small white cardboard box of pastries tied with a string in her lap.  Habib pulled away from the curb and re-entered the flow of traffic heading back to their townhouse.

 

Back at the FBI field office, a command post was already starting to form up and every available employee was being scheduled for shifts. The command post would likely be up and running for weeks, twenty-four/seven.  I went to our team room without changing out of my running gear.  The Senior Team Leader was already listing off directives to the assembled SWAT operators – call the nurse and pull everyone’s vaccine records; coordinate with Andrews Air Force Base logistics about an airlift for Washington, Baltimore and LA SWAT; and prep gear for a prolonged overseas deployment.  I was going to East Africa, and we all had a lot of work to do before being wheels up at 8:00 p.m. that night.  I had been working al Qaeda terrorism cases since early 1996, and Usama bin Laden or “UBL” as he was called, had already publicly warned the U.S. that his group was going to attack civilian and military targets indiscriminately. It appeared he had kept his promise by planning and executing the large bombing plot which simultaneously destroyed two fully staffed, heavily-guarded American embassies in neighboring countries.

 

In August 2020, twenty-two years after the embassy bombings, Abu Muhammad al-Masri was a 58-year-old Egyptian former professional soccer player who was now living quietly in Tehran.  Al-Masri’s Iranian-created cover was that of an unassuming history professor of Lebanese descent, using the name Habib Daoud.  In fact, al-Masri was the second highest ranking member of al Qaeda’s Shura Council and operational wing.  In the early-1990’s, UBL designated al-Masri as his chief planner, organizer and senior al Qaeda operative who oversaw five years of careful planning with the terror cells in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.  His daughter, named Miriam, was the widow of Hamza bin Laden, UBL’s son whom al-Masri had mentored when he and Hamza fled to Iran after the 9/11 attacks.

            

As the hulking grey windowless Air Force cargo plane took off from Andrews Air Force base with 150 FBI SWAT operators and a contingent of military special operations personnel on loan from the Defense Department, I found a spot on the hard metal floor to spread out my sleeping bag and pad, next to two large pallets of tactical gear bolted to the deck of the aircraft.  We had an 18-hour flight to Kenya ahead of us, even with a mid-air refueling to save time. The Army medic briefed us on an anti-nausea drug he could administer by injection if the refueling got too bumpy, and we signed a waiver to receive a sleeping pill called a “droopy dog” pill which reportedly put you right to sleep and 8 hours later you awoke alert, rested and combat ready.

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As we landed on the military side of Nairobi International airport, I couldn’t help but notice there were half a dozen broken and burned-out aircraft of various sizes simply pushed to the side of the runway and abandoned.  Arriving at the blast site in Nairobi’s crowded downtown district it was a shocking and chaotic scene seeing what used to be a large American embassy. There were hundreds of witness interviews to complete.  One State Department employee I interviewed was sitting in his embassy office and heard some loud bangs before the bomb went off. He remembered his training and ducked under his desk.  A co-worker in the office next door, hearing the loud bangs, which were actually gun shots from the Embassy guards who realized they were under attack, went to the window to see what was happening, and was cut cleanly in half when the bomb exploded and tore out the front of the embassy, collapsing nearby buildings.  One of the bombers who ran injured from the suicide truck before it detonated was located and arrested trying to blend in with hundreds of injured civilians at a local hospital.

 

As Habib and Maryam paused at a stoplight on the warm August evening, less than a mile from their townhouse, a motorcycle carrying two people pulled alongside the white Renault sedan.  The passenger on the back of the motorcycle pulled a pistol with a silencer and fired multiple shots into the vehicle killing Habib and Maryam.  The two on the motorcycle slipped away into the evening traffic, and al-Masri, the heir apparent to the al Qaeda organization was dead, twenty-two years to the day after his work destroyed two American embassies and countless lives.

 

I would spend two months in the Horn of Africa in August-September 1998, and many more hours investigating the bombing and cells which had financed, planned and executed the deadly operation.  Planning and patience I learned were hallmarks of UBL and al Qaeda, who planned the embassy bombings for over five years.  I learned patience and planning were also how the U.S. Government and FBI operated in the Global War on Terror.  The war continues.