Embassy bombing victims' families seek access to fund

WASHINGTON -- Families of 12 Americans killed in U.S. embassy bombings could use the compensation fund created after Sept. 11, under legislation pushed by a broad, bipartisan group of lawmakers.

Members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network were convicted in 1998 attacks on embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The bombings killed 224 people, 12 of them U.S. citizens.

Efforts in Congress to compensate their families lagged until the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The United States blames bin Laden and the al-Qaida for those attacks, too.

"We've been waiting three years," said Edith Bartley, whose father, consul general Julian Bartley, and younger brother, Jay, died in the Nairobi attack. Bartley is a Washington attorney who lives in the capital's Maryland suburbs.

"It took Sept. 11 to bring the issue of terrorism and security to the forefront," Bartley said during a Capitol Hill news conference.

Under a measure introduced Thursday, families of the dozen American victims would have access to the same compensation fund Congress created for families of people who died and those wounded in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Blunt favors bill

"Our nation has rallied around the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia," said Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a sponsor of the bill. "We cannot forget the sacrifices of the brave men and women who died serving our nation in Kenya and Tanzania."