The strikes by US forces against targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan were motivated "solely to protect American people", the US Secretary of Defence, Mr William Cohen, stressed. Yet, the strikes may, if anything, significantly increase the risk to the lives of Americans and others. The action was a calculated gamble but the risks are high. If it provokes swift retaliation, the gamble may fail with tragic consequences.
The US is not alone in pinning the blame for the Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam bombings on the organisation controlled by the wealthy Saudi dissident, Mr Osama bin Laden. Many Middle-East governments are also convinced that Mr bin Laden provided the finance, the organisation and the personnel. Indeed, Mr bin Laden, even before the embassy bombings, had set himself up as a target of significance. The organisation he sponsors, the Islamic International Front for Fighting Jews and Crusaders, announced last February that it would attack US targets worldwide and this week it issued a statement to the panArab newspaper al-Hayat pledging a "holy struggle" against the US.
Mr bin Laden's followers are called "Arab Afghans". Their origins stem from the Arab volunteers of the 1980s who, alongside the Afghani Mujahideen, fought against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. In that war, they were financed by Saudi Arabia and armed by the US - the Americans being only too happy to assist the enemy of its enemy. But having defeated the mighty Soviet Union, the "Arab Afghan" army, then widely and conveniently dispersed, turned its attention to the western nations and their Arab and Muslim allies.
Mr bin Laden, a fugitive from Saudi Arabia, is believed to be based in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush where the Taliban militia - which is equally fundamentalist - provides protection. His camps in the remote Khost region, against which the US struck, are thought to house up to 600 personnel. If the strikes were accurate, there will have been much loss of life, but even US intelligence is unsure of how critical the camps are to the movement.
The Shifa pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan capital, Khartoum, produces chemical weapons for the movement, according to the US. It is located within an industrial complex. Its destruction is likely to have caused considerable collateral damage to near-by people and property, bringing death and destruction to innocents as well as the activists. It is much less certain that the strikes will have served any purpose in significantly undermining Mr bin Laden's position.
Mr Cohen denies it, but the action may be simple retaliation rather than a genuine pre-emptive strike against the movement, planned in detail to clip its wings. The action will undoubtedly manifest a feelgood factor among US military and much of the US public, cheered that the empire struck back. The final decision, as Mr Cohen pointed out, rested with the Commander-in-Chief of the US forces, President Clinton. He will have been very conscious through the last two days, that support for him within his own party is plunging in the aftermath of his testimony and speech on Monday and he will have been conscious too that Ms Lewinsky's additional evidence was guaranteed to dominate the US media. It is fortuitous indeed for Mr Clinton that his decision to send in the missiles will push Ken Starr and Ms Lewinsky off the front pages and offer distraction to the American public and its politicians.