On 7 August 1998, al Qaeda terrorists detonated a car bomb outside the United States embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, leaving 200 dead and thousands wounded. The immediate aftermath strained relations between the United States and Kenya, as Kenyans felt that the United States only cared about the Americans who lost their lives, not the Kenyans. The situation was worsened when the American ambassador, Prudence Bushnell, implied that Kenyans were attempting to loot the embassy.