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24 Yale J. Int'l L. 537 (1999)
The Use of Force to Respond to Terrorist Attacks: The Bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan

handle is hein.journals/yjil24 and id is 549 raw text is: Colloquy The Use of Force to Respond to Terrorist Attacks: The Bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan Jules Lobelt I. INTRODUCTION On August 20, 1998, the United States fired Tomahawk missiles at sites in Afghanistan and Sudan. The missile strikes destroyed the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant located in Sudan's capital, Khartoum. The United States also targeted training facilities in Afghanistan believed to be under the control of Osama bin Laden, the man depicted by the Clinton Administration as the terrorist mastermind behind the August 7, 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salam, Tanzania. The United States promptly notified the Security Council that the military strikes were legally justified as measures taken in self-defense, under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.! President Clinton stated that the United States had convincing evidence that bin Laden was behind the embassy bombings and had planned to attack other American targets in the immediate future.2 Administration officials claimed that the Sudan factory was producing chemical warfare-related weapons and was linked to bin Laden's terrorist network.3 The Security Council did not meet publicly to evaluate the U.S. military action, as it did in 1986 and 1993 when the United States launched air strikes in response to the alleged terrorist acts and plots of Libya and Iraq.4 Thus far, t Professor of Law, the University of Pittsburgh. I wish to thank my research assistants Neelie Shreiber and John Monocello for their valuable research assistance and the staff at the Document Technology Center at the University of Pittsburgh for their technical support. 1. See U.N. CHARTER art. 51; U.S. Strikes Back NEWSDAY (New York), Aug. 21, 1998, at A38. 2. See Art Pine, US. Targets Heart of Terror, L.A. TIMES, Aug. 21,1998, at Al. 3. White House Special Briefing with Sandy Berger, National Security Adviser, Fed. News Serv., Aug. 21, 1998, at 1. 4. See Albright Takes Case to UN., STAR-LEDGER (Newark, N.J.), June 28, 1993, at Al; Michael I. Berlin, Raid on Libya Condemned by U.N. General Assembly, WASH. POST, Nov. 21, 1986, at A30 (noting that the United States had blocked a Security Council resolution condemning the raid