The New Hebrides group becomes the Republic…

A massacre of foreign tourists, most of them Japanese and American, visiting the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor, Egypt, in November 1997, claims 58 foreign and four Egyptian victims.

After gunning down tourist and Egyptian bystanders, the terrorists attempt to escape to the hills, but the pursuing security forces kill most of them.

According to other reports, however, they shot each other to avoid being captured by the authorities.

The Gama'at al-Islamiyya or Islamic Group (IG), a violent Egyptian fundamentalist organization, claims responsibility for the act, declaring its perpetration in the name of Islam and that their aim is to apply the Sharia and Islamic rule in Egypt.

The Egyptian government says that the number of perpetrators was six, all killed, but the Gama's Al Islameya claims that the number was 12 and 6 managed to escape.

An IG leaflet reportedly left at the Luxor massacre site claims that the attack was carried out as a gesture to Mustafa Hamza, an exiled IG leader suspected of having masterminded the assassination attempt on President Mubarak and believed to be in Pakistan.

US authorities will later attempt to demonstrate links between the IG and bin Laden.

Bin Laden, further combining religion with his nationalistic cause, broadens his fatwah to include civilian targets.

On February 23, 1998, under the banner of the "World Islamic Front," he issues a joint declaration co-signed by officers of the Islamic Group of Egypt, Al Jihad, the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh, and the "Jamaat ul Ulema e Pakistan" that Muslims should kill Americans anywhere in the world.

In this call to arms, bin Laden states, "We&emdash;with God's help&emdash;call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.

We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's US troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians 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 order to liberate the al-Asqua Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca, Saudi Arabia) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."

The Egyptian Jihad group, in a warning reportedly sent to the US on August 6, 1998, declares they will soon deliver a message to Americans "which we hope they read with care, because we will write it, with God's help, in a language they will understand." (Source: New York Times 8.21.98)

Iraq, meanwhile, has informed the UN Security Council that it will not tolerate the continuation of the United Nations sanctions beyond the eighth year anniversary of sanctions against Iraq and the ordering of U.S. troops into the Gulf region.

The eighth anniversary falls on August 7, 1998.

Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, a Jordanian born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents, and Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali, born in England to wealthy Saudi Arabian parents while his father was studying there, will be convicted in summer 2001 of helping to plan the bombing.

Both will testify to being trained in Afghanistan, and to having received encouragement from bin Laden.) (Source: New York Times, 9.23.01)

A truck bomb explodes near the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, killing two hundred and thirteen people, including twelve Americans and thirty-one Foreign Service nationals from the Embassy and wounding four thousand six hundred and fifty others, at approximately 10:58;40 AM, on August 7.

Almost simultaneously, a similar bomb is detonated near the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Both embassies incur massive structural damage as a result of the attacks.

In Nairobi, even bombproof doors are completely blown off.

Fourteen people have to have their eyes removed because of the heavy damage from flying shrapnel.(Source: Daily Telegraph 8.12.98).