The father of a British rapper suspected of beheading an American journalist pleaded guilty in a US court on Friday to planning the 1998 bombings of two embassies in Africa that killed hundreds of people.
Adel Abdel Bary admitted to a New York judge that he collaborated with Osama bin Laden and others to blow up the US diplomatic missions in Kenya and Tanzania. The blasts killed 224 people.
The 54-year-old Egyptian was extradited from Britain to the U.S. in 2012. He acted largely as a messenger between those plotting the bombings, and the media. Those messages included threats of future al-Qaida attacks.
Abdel Bary's son, Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, is one of the suspected but unconfirmed executioners of journalist James Foley. The younger Abdel Bary is believed to have left Britain last year to join the militant group based in Syria now known as Islamic State.
Although the killer's face was masked with a black hood on the video, his voice and British accent can clearly be heard. Intelligence agencies are said to be using sophisticated voice recognition and surveillance technology to identify the killer.
