American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi will stand beside Kenyan colleagues Wednesday who were wounded in the devastating attack on the downtown embassy 15 years ago.
During a week of heightened security concerns at U.S. embassies mostly in the Arab world, the East African countries of Rwanda, Burundi, Mauritius and Madagascar were added to the U.S. embassy closures list Sunday. Diplomatic posts in 19 cities will be closed this week.
Rwanda and Burundi sit in the same East African region that holds Kenya and Tanzania, the two countries hit in simultaneous embassy attacks masterminded by Osama bin Laden on Aug. 7, 1998, killing 224 people, mostly Kenyans.
The State Department shut down U.S. facilities in countries like Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait until Aug. 10.
