Twenty years ago today, al Qaeda carried out its most devastating terrorist attack prior to the September 11 hijackings. On the morning of August 7, 1998, two al Qaeda operatives drove explosive-laden trucks into the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Two-hundred and twenty-four people were killed and thousands more wounded. Here is a fact about the bombings that is well-established by official sources and worth remembering: Iran showed al Qaeda how to conduct the attacks.

The Iranian hand was first detected by federal prosecutors during the Clinton administration. The relationship between al Qaeda and Iran initially developed during bin Laden’s sojourn in the Sudan in the early 1990s. At the time, bin Laden was attempting to build an “Islamic Army” comprised of various Sunni jihadist groups from around the world. The al Qaeda founder’s big tent jihadism also included outreach to Iran and its chief terrorist proxy, Hezbollah.