Crises in Somalia and the Middle East need to be resolved to prevent further extremism and terrorist attacks, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Thursday on the 10th anniversary of deadly bomb attacks in East Africa.

Over 200 people died and more than 4,000 were injured in Kenyan capital Nairobi and Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam in coordinated bomb attacks on United States embassies carried out by al-Qaeda on August 7, 1998.

The attacks were the first major blasts carried out by the terror network.

Odinga said that a solution must be found to the Palestinian crisis and called on the United Nations Security Council to help end the chaos in neighbouring Somalia.

"A lawless Somalia threatens Kenya's security," Odinga said during a ceremony at the site of the former US embassy, now a memorial park in downtown Nairobi.

The Horn of Africa nation has been plagued by chaos and civil war since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991. Fighting has intensified since 2007 as Islamic insurgents battle the transitional government and their Ethiopian allies.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a member of al-Qaeda believed to be the key architect of the 1998 attacks, is thought to have taken refuge in Somalia.

Police narrowly missed arresting him in the Kenyan coastal town of Malindi last weekend. Fazul was believed to have come to Kenya in search of medical treatment.

Local Muslim leaders have accused Kenyan police of harassment saying they have arrested many innocent people during their search for the suspected bomber.

However, Odinga said that no single community would be singled out, as this would only breed more extremists.

Controversy also surrounds the issue of compensation for victims of the blasts.

The vast majority of the casualties in the coordinated bomb attacks came in Kenya when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in his vehicle, damaging the US embassy and collapsing a nearby building.

Most of the victims were East Africans, and victims' associations say that neither the Kenyan nor the US government have given sufficient help to those non-US nationals injured in the blasts.

However, US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger denied these charges.

"We have paid over 42 million dollars," he told Kenyan television channel K24. "No amount would be sufficient, however ... we continue to look at ways we can try to help."