A secret until now: Osama raid avenged CIA deaths

For a small cadre of CIA veterans, the death of Osama bin Laden was more than just a national moment of relief and closure. It was also a measure of payback, a settling of a score for a pair of deaths, the details of which have remained secret for 13 years.
Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy were among the 44 people killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998. Though it has never been publicly acknowledged, the two were working undercover for the CIA. In al-Qaeda's war on the United States, they are believed to have been the first CIA casualties.
Monday is Memorial Day in the United States, when survivors honor their dead from military or other service to the country. The names of Hardy and Shah probably will not be among those read at Memorial Day observances, because like many CIA officers, their service remained a secret in both life and death, marked only by anonymous stars on the wall at CIA headquarters and blank entries in its book of honor.