U.S. Treads Lightly In Nairobi
In Nairobi, where the search for evidence and the cleanup seem never-ending, there was no sense Friday morning that revenge is right - only that it may be necessary.
Some feel the U.S. strikes against terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan are justified.
Others feel compassion for any innocent victims who may have been hurt in those countries, reports CBS News Correspondent Vicki Mabrey.
There is concern that there will be more sites like the rubble in Nairobi, more scenes like that replayed throughout the world. Two bombs exploded Aug. 7 at the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing a total of 257 people and wounding more than 5,500.
Said one Kenyan, "I think the guys are going to hit back again to you people [Americans]. They will definitely do that, I'm very sure. And thenÂ…you're going to start a war."
During her visit to Nairobi this week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the U.S. embassy in Kenya will not be rebuilt on the same site. The Kenyan president says the site instead will become a permanent memorial to the bombing victims.
Meanwhile, the FBI is pulling some of its investigators out of East Africa and sending a SWAT team there as a security measure. The agency's director, Louis Freeh, abruptly cut short his visit to a bombing site in Kenya Friday to return to Washington. He canceled plans to lay a wreath amid the rubble of the bombed-out U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in order to return to headquarters in Washington earlier than planned, U.S. Embassy spokesman Chris Scharf said
A group of 115 FBI agents and specialists had been scheduled to leave for Kenya and Tanzania on Friday to assist in the investigation of the Aug. 7 bombings of the embassies there. But after President Clinton announced the military strikes Thursday, that airlift was canceled.
In addition, some of the 250 FBI agents and lab examiners already in East Africa are returning this weekend on normal rotation and will not immediately be replaced. Instead, the FBI is dispatching one of its Special Weapons and Tactics squads to enhance the security of its personnel in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the officials said.
In their continuing efforts to solve the two-week-old terrorist bombings, FBI agents conducted raids - one on Wednesday on a Nairobi hotel and another Thursday on a residential home in a suburb of Nairobi. Investigators won't say what's driving these raids, but at least part of their information is coming from a suspect they've been questioning for the last week.
CBS News has learned from sources in Nairobi that Mohammad Saddiq Odeh has confessed his part in the bombing to FBI investigators and has named accomplices.
Odeh also has admitted to being an associate of Osama bin Laden and says he was trying to get back to Afghanistan when he was arrested.
In Tanzania, two people remain in custody in the bombing investigation, but Home Affairs Minister Al Ameir Mohammed would not give their names or nationalities.