Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory

1998 Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory missile strike
Part of United States state terrorism
U.S. reconnaissance satellite image of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in 1998
Location	Kafouri, Khartoum North, Sudan
Date	20 August 1998
Attack type	Cruise missile strike
Weapon	Tomahawk missiles
Deaths	1 civilian[1][2]
Injured	11 civilians[1][2]
Perpetrators	United States

The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory (Arabic: الشفاء, romanized: aš-šifāʔ, lit. 'remedy') in Kafouri, Khartoum North, Sudan, was constructed between 1992 and 1996 with components imported from Germany, India, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the United States. It was opened on 12 July 1997^[3][4] and bombed by the United States on 20 August 1998. The industrial complex was composed of four buildings. It was the largest pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum and employed over 300 workers, producing medicine both for human and veterinary use.

The factory was destroyed in 1998 by a missile attack launched by the United States, killing one employee and wounding eleven.^[1][2] The U.S. government claimed that the factory was used for the processing of VX nerve agent and that the owners of the plant had ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda.

These justifications for the bombing were disputed by the owners of the plant, the Sudanese government, and other governments. American officials later acknowledged "that the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed. Indeed, officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had been manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected by the Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of Khartoum in the 1980s."^[5] The attack took place a week after the Monica Lewinsky scandal and two months after release of the film Wag the Dog, prompting some commentators to describe the attack as a distraction for the public from the scandal.^[6]