US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Tuesday, August 2, responded to the issue of compensating Kenyans and Tanzanians who were victims of the 1998 bomb blast.
While addressing the media, Kirby affirmed that the issues raised about the families would be looked into, noting that the demise of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, was beneficial to the entire world.
Kirby was put to task by an international news reporter, Simon Ateba, who pointed out the neglect of the Kenyan and Tanzanian families despite the US citizens receiving compensation worth Ksh39.8 billion.
In a back and forth exchange between the spokesperson and the reporter, Kirby took issue with the journalist's persistence on the matter- noting that all lives mattered.
"Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed Saturday in a US drone strike, killed more than 200 people in Tanzania and in Kenya in 1998 and right now, even though the US compensated US citizens who were victims of those bombings, the people in Kenya and Tanzania received nothing. The families of the victims of those bombings were not compensated by the US. What message do you have?" the reporter inquired.
"I don’t have any compensation policies here to speak to. Again, Mr. Zawahiri’s death is good for everybody around the world,” Kirby responded.
“So are you saying that the lives of Kenyans and Tanzanians don’t really matter?” the reporter further pressed.
"Wow, I got to take issue with that. I did not say that. And I don’t even know where you came from on that one. Of course, all lives matter.”
"I really take exception to the tone and the implication in that question. Of course, their lives matter. Every life matters, particularly a life taken so violently as by the hands of a terrorist. If those lives didn’t matter, sir, we wouldn’t have taken the action that we took this weekend," Kirby stated.
Further, the spokesperson noted that the US government had to track Zawahiri's family members in order to pinpoint the terrorist's location.
The government officials studied Zawahiri's movements and habits to understand his pattern of life for six months to ascertain his identity.
"This mission really took shape over the course of the last six, seven months. It was really sort of early this year, as you heard the president say, that we got indications that Mr. Zawahiri had moved into Afghanistan.”
"What we were able to do was stitch together some intelligence based on the movements of his family, quite frankly, and then once we tracked them into Kabul, we were able to then be able to track him and his efforts to reunite them," Kirby stated.
