[Wikipedia]
Operation Infinite Reach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infinite_Reach Operation Infinite Reach was the codename for American cruise missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases in Khost, Afghanistan, and the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, on August 20, 1998.
The attacks, launched by the U.S. Navy, were ordered by President Bill Clinton 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.[15]
U.S. intelligence suggested financial ties between the Al-Shifa plant and Osama bin Laden, and 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."[16][b]
[Wikipedia]
Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory The Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum North, Sudan, was constructed between 1992 and 1996 with components imported from Germany, India, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the United States.
It was opened 12 July 1997.[1][2]
The factory was destroyed in 1998 by a missile attack launched by the United States government, killing one employee and wounding eleven[citation needed].
The U.S. government alleged that the factory was used for the processing of VX nerve agent and that the owners of the plant had ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda.
These justifications for the bombing were disputed by the owners of the plant, the Sudanese government, and other governments.
American officials later acknowledged "that the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed.
Indeed, officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had been manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected by the Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of Khartoum in the 1980s."[3]
