World

FBI Seeks Clues In Embassy Rubble

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 7, 1998 / 1:00 AM EDT / CBS

While mourners prayed for the dead and injured in twin bombings at U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania, officials claimed a miracle happened Sunday. An Israeli search team rescued a mother and her son from an upper floor in a 22-story building near the Nairobi embassy. They were able to walk themselves, and in good condition.

However, the death toll from both terrorist bombings rose to 210 Sunday. Twelve of the victims were Americans and more than 5,000 were injured by the blasts.

Compared to what remains of the building next door, the U.S. embassy in Nairobi doesn't look so bad. But the embassy is also being treated as the scene of a crime, so search and rescue teams have to do their job without disturbing evidence, CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports.

Sixty-four specialists from Virginia's Fairfax County Fire Department brought in to do the job know about that.

Click image.(CBS)

"Standing on the third floor of this building I felt exactly like I was right back in the Murrah building in Oklahoma City," said Battalion Chief Mike Tamillow. "Where those floors might have debris chest-high this might be just waist-high, but it's just extremely similar, the inside blast patterns and everything."

The embassy has been sealed off by heavily-armed Marines and security men. Inside, forensic experts from the FBI and Department of Defense are painstakingly searching for clues as to what happened, and who may have done it.

Officials are inspecting a mangled vehicle said to be suspected of being the one that carried the bomb.

The only thing that saved the American embassy from becoming a giant pile of rubble was good construction, a Fairfax County fireman said -- decent concrete and lots of reinforcing steel. The bomb that did this, he added, had to be the size of the one that devastated the Oklahoma City federal building.

With no one left to save in the U.S. embassy, the Virginia team decided to search a nearby building. They brought along tools designed for the job, including a camera.

"We can lower it down there if we find a victim we can actually communicate with them," said Chris Matsos, a Fairfax County Fireman.

The mess they found was another indication of the force of the explosion. However, there was nothing for the dogs to find. The building had already been searched.

Rescue workers carry out bomb victim in Tanzania. Click Image (CBS)

The fact that the Americans appear to be concentrating their efforts and vast resources just on the embassy building is not winning them any friends here.

It's something that is mentioned every time the Israelis working on the ruins next door pull out the body of a Kenyan victim of a bomb aimed at Americans.

As FBI and anti-terrorism experts begin their work at the U.S. embassy in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, suspicion is focusing on a blue water truck whose burned out hulk now sits against the embassy walls, CBS News Correspondent Susan Spencer reports.

The first question for investigators is, was the truck loaded with explosives when the driver and assistant -- both now dead -- pulled up to the embassy gate.

The whole thing may have been caught on videotape by a nearby security camera. Whether or not it was taping at the time will be of major interest to the investigators as there are no eyewitnesses to the crime.

Marines have now sealed off the area with concertina wire and put a huge tarp over the crater that marks the exact spot of the blast. The explosion did far more damage than immediately apparent. Though the embassy itself stands every room is seriously damaged, as are buildings far across the street.

Before this building became the U.S. embassy, it was the Israeli embassy. Sources have implied that the building was well fortified and may have stood up to the blast better than the building in Nairobi for that reason. A US diplomat Sunday did not argue with the idea that this bomb could have been as powerful as the one in Nairobi.

There were ten Americans and five Kenyans in the first group to make the nine hour flight from Nairobi to the American air base in Ramstein, Germany, CBS News Correspondent Vicki Mabrey reports.

Most patients were brought out on stretchers, while a few were ambulatory. Their injuries include fractures, burns and respiratory problems from smoke inhalation.

"It was almost surreal because everyone was so calm," one survivor told CBS Affiliate WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C.

He said that the most upsetting image was how much blood was shed all around him.

Click here to see video of bombing survivor arriving in Washington, D.C., Sunday.

Four were scheduled for immediate surgery. One man had to be transported to the neurosurgery intensive care unit at another hospital a few miles away. The edical staff waiting at Ramstein has seen these types of injuries before -- after the terrorist bombing at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia - - but it was still a tough assignment.

"Most of the injuries are exactly as you would characterize from a terrorist bomb blast: flying debris, broken bones, very sad. a lot of people were seriously injured," said Chief Medical Officer Lt. Col. Russell Turner.
One survivor, Mary Ofisi, is being treated for an eye injury, but she is among the lucky ones.

"Especially them that were in the same room, most of them are not alive. Only two that are alive," Ofisi said.

The plane that brought these injured loaded up with medical supplies and equipment for a quick turnaround back to Nairobi. It will return to Ramstein again tomorrow, carrying more of the wounded.