http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/bombings/charges.html
>...Ali Mohamed, a 48 year old Egyptian native and former US Army
sergeant, was the first person to plead guilty or be convicted of
murder charges resulting from the embassy bombings. On Friday, October
20, 2000, Mohamed told Judge Leonard Sand of the U.S. District Court
in Manhattan that at the request of bin Laden, he had conducted
surveillance of US, British, and French targets in Nairobi, including
the US embassy. He then delivered pictures, diagrams, and a report to
bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan. He said that bin Laden looked at a
photograph of the US embassy and pointed to the place where a bomb
truck could be driven through. The targets were chosen, Mohamed said,
to retaliate against the US intervention in the civil war in Somalia.
Mohamed confirmed that the larger objective of bin Laden and his association is to attack Western targets in the Middle East, in order to force Western governments to pull out of the region. He also detailed the relationships between bin Laden's organization, al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. He is the first suspect to speak publicly about bin Laden's involvement in terrorist activities.
Mohamed pleaded guilty to five federal counts of conspiracy, which included plotting to kill US citizens, destroy US facilities, and murder US soldiers in Somalia and Saudi Arabia. His plea was a major victory for US prosecutors. Mohamed is a naturalized US citizen, who worked as a supply sergeant in a Special Forces unit in Fort Bragg, North Carolina from 1986 to 1989, before going to work for bin Laden.
http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=425
>...Although the Hizballah is a Shia Muslim organization, and
al-Qaida, a Sunni Muslim group, there is substantial evidence of a
working alliance between the two groups dating back to the early
1990s. The trial of al-Qaida militants in the United States has
revealed not only ideological links, but also operational connections
between Hizballah and al-Qaida.
A representative of bin Ladin reportedly met with an official of the Iranian government prior to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, in order to establish an "anti-U.S. alliance." This meeting was reportedly followed by an even more important one, this time between bin Ladin and Imad Mugniyeh, the operations director of Hizballah. The bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa bear an operational resemblance to Hizballah suicide attacks against the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Ali Mohamed, who was convicted of conspiracy in the U.S. embassy bombings, testified that al-Qaida's method for driving the United States out of the Middle East was modeled on the successes of the Lebanese Hizballah organization.
Referring to the 1983 truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut—an attack that killed 241 U.S. soldiers—Mohamed said that his group intended to use "the same method to force the United States to pull out of Saudi Arabia."
Apparently, Hizballah did more than just serve as a source of inspiration for al-Qaida. "I was aware of certain contacts between al-Qaida and al-Jihad organization, on one side, and Iran and Hizballah on the other side," Mohamed said. "I arranged security for a meeting in the Sudan between Mughniyah, Hizballah's chief, and bin Ladin."
"Hizballah provided explosives training for al-Qaida and al-Jihad," Mohamed said, adding, "Iran also used Hizballah to supply explosives that were disguised to look like rocks." Mohamed's statement has a ring of truth, in that just such disguised explosives were used extensively by Hizballah against Israeli army patrols in South Lebanon.
Imad Mughniyah, described as the head of Hizballah's Islamic Jihad operational wing, is believed to be behind several terrorist incidents, including the bombing of the Israeli embassy and Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and the hijacking of an American airliner. Recently the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, reported that Mughniyah has been appointed by Iran as coordinator of Hizballah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
-- Michael Pugliese