Osama Bin Laden: Kenya hails death of al-Qaeda leader

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The East African bombings were al-Qaeda's first attacks on the US

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Death of Bin Laden

• Osama Bin Laden's death Live
• The raid: How it happened
• Obituary
• In pictures: Bin Laden's life

Kenyan leaders have welcomed the killing in Pakistan of Osama Bin Laden, the man behind the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi.

President Mwai Kibaki said it brought justice for the Kenyan victims of al-Qaeda.
Some 224 people, mostly Kenyans, were killed in the simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and in Tanzania's main city Dar es Salaam.
Kenyan security services are now on high alert in case of revenge attacks.
The most senior official in Kenya's internal security ministry, Francis Kimemia, told the BBC that the US should also target al-Qaeda cells in East Africa.
The al-Shabab militant group, which controls much of southern Somalia, has close links to al-Qaeda and last year carried out a suicide bombing in Uganda.
In 2009 US forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a top al-Qaeda operative accused of links to the 1998 embassy bombings, in a raid in Somalia.
Trial 'would have been better' Kenya's prime minister was among those hailing Bin Laden's death.
"Osama's death can only be positive for Kenya, but we need to have a stable government in Somalia," Raila Odinga told Reuters news agency.
"The loss of its [al-Qaeda's] leader may first upset the movement but then it will regroup and continue."

Bin Laden lived in Sudan for five years

Douglas Sidialo, chairman of Kenya's 1998 US Embassy Bomb Victims' Association, who lost his sight in the attack, said Bin Laden's death was "a reason for celebration".
However, he said he would have preferred him to have been captured alive and put on trial to answer for his crimes.
Bin Laden lived in neighbouring Sudan from 1992-6 but authorities in Khartoum have not yet commented.
The BBC's James Copnall, in Khartoum, says Sudanese authorities are caught between trying to improve relations with the US and a domestic constituency which has some support for Bin Laden and even has fond memories of him.
Osama Bin Laden was killed by US forces in a ground operation in outside the Pakistan capital Islamabad, after the US received intelligence on his whereabouts.
US President Barack Obama said US forces had taken possession of his body.
Bin Laden was accused of masterminding a number of atrocities, including the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.
He was top of the US' "most wanted" list.
The US has put its embassies around the world on alert, warning Americans of the possibility of al-Qaeda reprisal attacks for Bin Laden's killing.