Fortress-like structure will have a counterpart in Tanzania, where a parallel blast hit in 1998. More than four years after Osama bin Laden’s terror network simultaneously attacked the U.S. embassies here and in Tanzania, American diplomats in Nairobi unveiled a fortress-like headquarters Monday designed to resist “flying bombs” like the ones that destroyed the World Trade Center. Today, State Department officials will open another high-walled compound in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital. The two newest U.S. embassies show how the threat of terrorism has altered the architecture of America’s diplomatic missions. Unlike its predecessor, a five-story structure crammed next to high-rise buildings in a busy downtown area of Nairobi, the new 125,000-square-foot embassy here occupies a 17-acre plot in an upscale suburb north of the city, is set back more than 100 feet from the street and uses smaller amounts of glass. “These are buildings that make a statement,” said Charles R. Stith, the former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania and now director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University. “They tell people like Bin Laden that the U.S. just will not be intimidated. We’re here to stay.” Full Story
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