After al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassy in Kenya on August 7, 1998, Osama bin Laden said the American diplomatic mission was targeted because it was serving as a major CIA station.

 

It turns out the former terrorist leader was right.

 

Among the 44 embassy employees killed in the bombing were Uttamlal “Tom” Shah, 38, and Molly Huckaby Hardy, 51, both CIA agents working undercover. Shah was working on a secret mission to recruit a defector from within the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein when terrorists attacked the embassy. Hardy, who had recently become a grandmother for the first time, was publically listed as working for the administrative division of the embassy. Shah’s and Hardy’s deaths are considered the first CIA casualties in the war against al-Qaeda.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Osama Raid Avenged CIA Deaths, a Secret Until Now (by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press)