Operation Infinite Reach

Operation Infinite Reach
Part of the Afghan conflict and the Second Sudanese Civil War
Map showing the two sites of attacks
Locations	Khartoum, Sudan 15°38′45″N 32°33′42″E Khost Province, Afghanistan
Planned	7–20 August 1998
Target	Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory and Afghan training camp
Date	20 August 1998 (1998-08-20)
Executed by	United States Navy
Outcome	United States failure Strikes hit targets but failed objectives Al-Qaeda suffers casualties and material damage, but its senior leaders survive Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant destroyed
Casualties	6–50 militants killed 1 killed, 10 injured 5 ISI officers killed

Operation Infinite Reach was the codename for American cruise missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases that were launched concurrently across two continents on 20 August 1998. Launched by the U.S. Navy, the strikes hit the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, and a camp in Khost Province, Afghanistan, in retaliation for al-Qaeda's August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people (including 12 Americans) and injured over 4,000 others. Operation Infinite Reach was the first time the United States acknowledged a preemptive strike against a violent non-state actor.

U.S. intelligence wrongly suggested financial ties between the al-Shifa plant, which produced over half of Sudan's pharmaceuticals, and Osama bin Laden; a soil sample collected from al-Shifa allegedly contained a chemical used in VX nerve gas manufacturing. Suspecting that al-Shifa was linked to, and producing chemical weapons for, bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, the U.S. destroyed the facility with cruise missiles, killing or wounding 11 Sudanese. The strike on al-Shifa proved controversial; after the attacks, the U.S. evidence and rationale were criticized as faulty, and academics Max Taylor and Mohamed Elbushra cite "a broad acceptance that this plant was not involved in the production of any chemical weapons."

The missile strikes on al-Qaeda's Afghan training camps were aimed at preempting more attacks and killing bin Laden. These strikes damaged the installations, but bin Laden was not present at the time. Two of the targeted camps were run by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan, which at the time was allied to the US, who were training militants to fight against Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir; in all, five ISI officers were confirmed killed and at least twenty militants also died. Following the attacks, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban allegedly reneged on a promise to Saudi intelligence chief Turki bin Faisal to hand over bin Laden, and the regime instead allegedly strengthened its ties with the al-Qaeda chief.

Operation Infinite Reach, the largest U.S. action in response to a terrorist attack since the 1986 bombing of Libya, was met with a mixed international response: U.S. allies and most of the American public supported the strikes, but many across the Muslim world disapproved them, viewing them as attacks specifically against Muslims, a factor that was further capitalized by radicals. The failure of the attacks to kill bin Laden also enhanced his public image in parts of the Muslim world. Further strikes were planned but not executed; as a 2002 congressional inquiry noted, Operation Infinite Reach was "the only instance ... in which the CIA or U.S. military carried out an operation directly against Bin Laden before September 11."

Background

On 23 February 1998, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and three other leaders of Islamic militant organizations issued a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, publishing it in al-Quds al-Arabi. Deploring the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the sanctions against Iraq, and U.S. support for Israel, they declared that "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilian and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it." In spring 1998, Saudi elites became concerned about the threat posed by al-Qaeda and bin Laden; militants attempted to infiltrate surface-to-air missiles inside the kingdom, an al-Qaeda defector alleged that Saudis were bankrolling bin Laden, and bin Laden himself lambasted the Saudi royal family. In June 1998, Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah (Saudi intelligence) director Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud traveled to Tarnak Farms to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar to discuss the question of bin Laden. Turki demanded that the Taliban either expel bin Laden from Afghanistan or hand him over to the Saudis, insisting that removing bin Laden was the price of cordial relations with the Kingdom. American analysts believed Turki offered a large amount of financial aid to resolve the dispute over bin Laden. Omar agreed to the deal, and the Saudis sent the Taliban 400 pickup trucks and funding, enabling the Taliban to retake Mazar-i-Sharif. While the Taliban sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia in July for further discussions, the negotiations stalled by August.

Around the same time, the U.S. was planning its own actions against bin Laden. Michael Scheuer, chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's bin Laden unit (Alec Station), considered using local Afghans to kidnap bin Laden, then exfiltrate him from Afghanistan in a modified Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Documents recovered from Wadih el-Hage's Nairobi computer suggested a link between bin Laden and the deaths of U.S. troops in Somalia. These were used as the foundation for the June 1998 New York indictment of bin Laden, although the charges were later dropped. The planned raid was cancelled in May after internecine disputes between officials at the FBI and the CIA; the hesitation of the National Security Council (NSC) to approve the plan; concerns over the raid's chance of success, and the potential for civilian casualties.

The U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, after the August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda bombing

Al-Qaeda had begun reconnoitering Nairobi for potential targets in December 1993, using a team led by Ali Mohamed. In January 1994, bin Laden was personally presented with the team's surveillance reports, and he and his senior advisers began to develop a plan to attack the American embassy there. From February to June 1998, al-Qaeda prepared to launch their attacks, renting residences, building their bombs, and acquiring trucks; meanwhile, bin Laden continued his public-relations efforts, giving interviews with ABC News and Pakistani journalists. While U.S. authorities had investigated al-Qaeda activities in Nairobi, they had not detected any warnings of imminent attacks.

On August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda teams in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, attacked the cities' U.S. embassies simultaneously with truck bombs. In Nairobi, the explosion collapsed the nearby Ufundi Building and destroyed the embassy, killing 213 people, including 12 Americans; another 4,000 people were wounded. In Dar es Salaam, the bomber was unable to get close enough to the embassy to demolish it, but the blast killed 11 Africans and wounded 85. Bin Laden justified the high-casualty attacks, the largest against the U.S. since the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, by claiming they were in retaliation for the deployment of U.S. troops in Somalia; he also alleged that the embassies had devised the Rwandan genocide as well as a supposed plan to partition Sudan.

Execution

Planning the strikes

National Security Advisor Sandy Berger called President Bill Clinton at 5:35 AM on August 7 to notify him of the bombings. That day, Clinton started meeting with his "Small Group" of national security advisers, which included Berger, CIA director George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, Defense Secretary William Cohen, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton. The group's objective was to plan a military response to the East Africa embassy bombings. Initially the U.S. suspected either Hamas or Hezbollah for the bombings, but FBI Agents John P. O'Neill and Ali Soufan demonstrated that al-Qaeda was responsible. Based on electronic and phone intercepts, physical evidence from Nairobi, and interrogations, officials soon demonstrated bin Laden as the perpetrator of the attacks. On August 8, the White House asked the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare a targets list; the initial list included twenty targets in Sudan, Afghanistan, and an unknown third country, although it was narrowed down on August 12.

In an August 10 Small Group meeting, the principals agreed to use Tomahawk cruise missiles, rather than troops or aircraft, in the retaliatory strikes. Cruise missiles had been previously used against Iraq as reprisal for the 1993 attempted assassination of then-President George H. W. Bush. Using cruise missiles also helped to preserve secrecy; airstrikes would have required more preparation that might have leaked to the media and alerted bin Laden. The option of using commandos was discarded, as it required too much time to prepare forces, logistics, and combat search and rescue. Using helicopters or bombers would have been difficult due to the lack of a suitable base or Pakistani permission to cross its airspace, and the administration also feared a recurrence of the disastrous 1980 Operation Eagle Claw in Iran. While military officials suggested bombing Kandahar, which bin Laden and his associates often visited, the administration was concerned about killing civilians and hurting the U.S.' image.

On August 11, General Anthony Zinni of Central Command was instructed to plan attacks on bin Laden's Khost camps, where CIA intelligence indicated bin Laden and other militants would be meeting on August 20, purportedly to plan further attacks against the U.S. Clinton was informed of the plan on August 12 and 14. Participants in the meeting later disagreed whether or not the intelligence indicated bin Laden would attend the meeting; however, an objective of the attack remained to kill the al-Qaeda leader, and the NSC encouraged the strike regardless of whether bin Laden and his companions were known to be present at Khost. The administration aimed to prevent future al-Qaeda attacks discussed in intercepted communications. As Berger later testified, the operation also sought to damage bin Laden's infrastructure and show the administration's commitment to combating bin Laden. The Khost complex, which was 90 miles (140 km) southeast of Kabul, also had ideological significance: Bin Laden had fought nearby during the Soviet–Afghan War, and he had given interviews and even held a press conference at the site. Felix Sater, then a CIA source, provided additional intelligence on the camps' locations.

On August 14, Tenet told the Small Group that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were doubtless responsible for the attack; Tenet called the intelligence a "slam dunk", according to counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, and Clinton approved the attacks the same day. As the 9/11 Commission Report relates, the group debated "whether to strike targets outside of Afghanistan". Tenet briefed the small group again on August 17 regarding possible targets in Afghanistan and Sudan; on August 19, the al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility in Khartoum, Sudan, al-Qaeda's Afghan camps, and a Sudanese tannery were designated as targets. The aim of striking the tannery, which had allegedly been given to bin Laden by the Sudanese for his road-building work, was to disrupt bin Laden's finances, but it was removed as a target due to fears of inflicting civilian casualties without any loss for bin Laden. Clinton gave the final approval for the attacks at 3:00 AM on August 20; the same day, he also signed Executive Order 13099, authorizing sanctions on bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The Clinton administration justified Operation Infinite Reach under Article 51 of the UN Charter and Title 22, Section 2377 of the U.S. Code; the former guarantees a UN member state's right to self-defense, while the latter authorizes presidential action by "all necessary means" to target international terrorist infrastructure. Government lawyers asserted that since the missile strikes were an act of self-defense and not directed at an individual, they were not forbidden as an assassination. A review by administration lawyers concluded that the attack would be legal, since the president has the authority to attack the infrastructure of anti-American terrorist groups, and al-Qaeda's infrastructure was largely human. Officials also interpreted "infrastructure" to include al-Qaeda's leadership.

The missiles would pass into Pakistani airspace, overflying "a suspected Pakistani nuclear weapons site," according to Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Ralston; U.S. officials feared Pakistan would mistake them for an Indian nuclear attack. Clarke was concerned the Pakistanis would shoot down the cruise missiles or airplanes if they were not notified, but also feared the ISI would warn the Taliban or al-Qaeda if they were alerted. In Islamabad on the evening of August 20, Ralston informed Pakistan Army Chief of Staff Jehangir Karamat of the incoming American strikes ten minutes before the missiles entered Pakistani airspace. Clarke also worried the Pakistanis would notice the U.S. Navy ships, but was told that submerged submarines would launch the missiles. However, the Pakistan Navy detected the destroyers and informed the government.

Al-Shifa plant attack

Main article: Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory

The remains of the destroyed Al-Shifa facility

At about 7:30 PM Khartoum time (17:30 GMT), two American warships in the Red Sea (USS Briscoe and USS Hayler) fired thirteen Tomahawk missiles at Sudan's Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, which the U.S. wrongly claimed was helping bin Laden build chemical weapons. The entire factory was destroyed except for the administration, water-cooling, and plant laboratory sections, which were severely damaged. One night watchman was killed and ten other Sudanese were wounded by the strike. Worried about the possibility for hazardous chemical leakages, analysts ran computer simulations on wind patterns, climate, and chemical data, which indicated a low risk of collateral damage. Regardless, planners added more cruise missiles to the strike on Al-Shifa, aiming to completely destroy the plant and any dangerous substances.

Clarke stated that intelligence linked bin Laden to Al-Shifa's current and past operators, namely Iraqi nerve gas experts such as Emad al-Ani and Sudan's ruling National Islamic Front. Since 1995, the CIA had received intelligence suggesting collaboration between Sudan and bin Laden to produce chemical weapons for attacking U.S. Armed Forces personnel based in Saudi Arabia. Since 1989, the Sudanese opposition and Uganda had alleged that the regime was manufacturing and using chemical weapons, although the U.S. did not accuse Sudan of chemical weapons proliferation. Al-Qaeda defector Jamal al-Fadl had also spoken of bin Laden's desire to obtain weapons of mass destruction, and an August 4 CIA intelligence report suggested bin Laden "had already acquired chemical weapons and might be ready to attack". Cohen later testified that physical evidence, technical and human intelligence, and the site's security and purported links to bin Laden backed the intelligence community's view that the Al-Shifa plant was producing chemical weapons and associated with terrorists.

With the help of an Egyptian agent, the CIA had obtained a sample of soil from the facility taken in December 1997 showing the presence of O-Ethyl methylphosphonothioic acid (EMPTA), a substance used in the production of VX nerve gas, at 2.5 times trace levels. (Reports are contradictory on whether the soil was obtained from within the compound itself, or outside.) The collected soil was split into three samples, which were then analyzed by a private laboratory. The agent's bona fides were later confirmed through polygraph testing; however, the CIA produced a report on Al-Shifa on July 24, 1998, questioning whether Al-Shifa produced chemical weapons or simply stored precursors, and the agency advised collecting more soil samples. Cohen and Tenet later briefed U.S. senators on intercepted telephone communications from the plant that reputedly bolstered the U.S. case against Al-Shifa. U.S. intelligence also purportedly researched the Al-Shifa factory online and searched commercial databases, but did not find any medicines for sale.

Al-Shifa controversy

U.S. officials later acknowledged that the evidence cited by the U.S. in its rationale for the Al-Shifa strike was weaker than initially believed: The facility had not been involved in chemical weapons production, and was not connected to bin Laden. The $30 million Al-Shifa factory, which had a $199,000 contract with the UN under the Oil-for-Food Programme, employed 300 Sudanese and provided over half of the country's pharmaceuticals, including medicines for malaria, diabetes, gonorrhea, and tuberculosis. A Sudanese named Salah Idris purchased the plant in March 1998; while the CIA later said it found financial ties between Idris and the bin Laden-linked terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the agency had been unaware at the time that Idris owned the Al-Shifa facility. Idris later denied any links to bin Laden and sued to recover $24 million in funds frozen by the U.S., as well as for the damage to his factory. Idris hired investigations firm Kroll Inc., which reported in February 1999 that neither Idris nor Al-Shifa was connected to terrorism.

The chairman of Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries insisted that his factory did not make nerve gas, and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir formed a commission to investigate the factory. Sudan invited the U.S. to conduct chemical tests at the site for evidence to support its claim that the plant might have been a chemical weapons factory; the U.S. refused the invitation to investigate and did not officially apologize for the attacks. Press coverage indicated that Al-Shifa was not a secure, restricted-access factory, as the U.S. alleged, and American officials later conceded that Al-Shifa manufactured pharmaceutical drugs. Sudan requested a UN investigation of the Al-Shifa plant to verify or disprove the allegations of weapons production; while the proposal was backed by several international organizations, it was opposed by the U.S.

The American Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) criticized the CIA's intelligence on Al-Shifa and bin Laden in an August 6 memo; as James Risen reported, INR analysts concluded that "the evidence linking Al Shifa to bin Laden and chemical weapons was weak." According to Risen, some dissenting officials doubted the basis for the strike, but senior principals believed that "the risks of hitting the wrong target were far outweighed by the possibility that the plant was making chemical weapons for a terrorist eager to use them." Senior NSC intelligence official Mary McCarthy had stated that better intelligence was needed before planning a strike, while Reno, concerned about the lack of conclusive evidence, had pressed for delaying the strikes until the U.S. obtained better intelligence. According to CIA officer Paul R. Pillar, senior Agency officials met with Tenet before he briefed the White House on bin Laden and Al-Shifa, and the majority of them opposed attacking the plant. Barletta notes that "It is unclear precisely when U.S. officials decided to destroy the Shifa plant." ABC News reported that Al-Shifa was designated as a target just hours in advance; Newsweek stated that the plant was targeted on August 15–16; U.S. officials asserted that the plant was added as a target months in advance; and a U.S. News & World Report article contended that Al-Shifa had been considered as a target for years. Clinton ordered an investigation into the evidence used to justify the Al-Shifa strike, while as of July 1999, the House and Senate intelligence committees were also investigating the target-selection process, the evidence cited, and whether intelligence officials recommended attacking the plant.

It was later hypothesized that the EMPTA detected was the result of the breakdown of a pesticide or confused with Fonofos, a structurally similar insecticide used in African agriculture. Eric Croddy contends that the sample did not contain Fonofos, arguing that Fonofos has a distinct ethyl group and a benzene group, which distinguish it from EMPTA, and that the two chemicals could not be easily confused. Tests conducted in October 1999 by Idris' defense team found no trace of EMPTA.