Kenya and Tanzania to commemorate US embassy bomb blasts

Nairobi - Kenya and Tanzania were Thursday set to commemorate the 10th anniversary of deadly coordinated bomb attacks on United States embassies in their respective capital cities that killed over 200 and injured thousands.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, ceremonies were set to take place at the US embassy and at the site of the former embassy, now a downtown park, where 213 people - largely Kenyans - died.

Over 4,000 people were injured in the bomb attack.

A ceremony will be held in a memorial park in Dar es Salaam, where 11 where killed and 70 injured in the 1998 attack.

Kenyan police were this week searching for Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network believed to be the key architect of the attacks, after he narrowly escaped arrest in the coastal town of Malindi last weekend.

Local Muslim leaders are accusing Kenyan police of harassment, saying they are arresting many innocent people during their search.

Controversy also surrounds the issue of compensation for victims of the blast in Kenya.

Victims' associations say that neither the Kenyan nor the US government have given sufficient help to those injured in the blasts.

However, US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger denied these charges.

"We have paid over 42 million dollars," he told Kenyan television channel K24. "No amount would be sufficient, however ... we continue to look at ways we can try to help." (dpa)