MOMBASA, Kenya, 30 November 2002 — Kenyan police said yesterday they were questioning a dozen people over the twin bomb and missile attacks on Israeli tourists, after Israel vowed to hunt down all those behind the Mombasa blood bath.
Kenyan police said they have detained six Pakistanis, three Somalis, a Spaniard, an American and a Kenyan in connection with the anti-Israeli attacks. A US diplomat later said the woman holding a US passport and her Spanish husband, who holds a US work visa would be freed soon. Police said they were hunting others of Arab appearance.
A Somali-based group linked to Al-Qaeda, emerged as the prime suspects in bomb and missile attacks in Kenya, American officials said yesterday.
“At this point, it is not clear who is responsible — it’s too early,” a US spokesman said. But he said that at the top of the list of suspects is the extremist group Al-Itihad Al-Islamiya, based in neighboring Somalia, and also known as AIAI or the Islamic Union.
Israel, meanwhile, airlifted some 250 tourists and the bodies of three victims of the attack out of Kenya.
One more body was pulled late Thursday from the rubble of the bombed Israeli-owned beach hotel bringing the total killed to 16 including three bombers.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon swore to avenge the deaths of the three Israelis killed in the blast and six others who died in an attack in Israel itself.
“We will not give in to terror... Israel will go after those who spilled the blood of its citizens,” he said.
Sharon sent four Hercules planes to Kenya to bring back the Israeli dead and survivors from the wrecked Paradise Mombasa hotel in Kikambala, north of Mombasa.
A spokesman for the US Embassy in Nairobi said the suicide bombers may have used US passports to enter Kenya.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Army of Palestine claimed responsibility from Beirut for the Mombasa attacks, but Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath said it was not the work of any Palestinian organization.
A French intelligence online newsletter said yesterday a Yemeni Imam is suspected of having ties to the double terrorist attack.
The newsletter, “intelligence online”, wrote that “it seems impossible” that the suicide bomb attack on a hotel and an attempted missile attack on an Israeli airplane Thursday could have been carried out without the support of a network headed by Iman Sheikh Ali Shee. The influence of Ali Shee, who heads The Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK), is concentrated in Mombasa, the newsletter noted. But, the Kenyan preacher Ali Shee rejected the intelligence claims linking him to Thursday’s attacks.
Meanwhile, a rocket launcher found near Mombasa airport after the missiles were fired is a Russian-built Strela model, the Russian equivalent of the US-made Stinger system, a military specialist said after studying television footage of the weapon. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the attackers probably fired SAM-7, Russian-made, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Police said the missiles were fired from a white utility vehicle, possibly from shoulder-held launchers. “The search for the white Pajero and three occupants of Arab origin is on,” Abong’o said. The hotel attackers were also described as of Arab appearance and driving a Pajero.
“Terrorism is dangerous, not only to Europe and the United States, but also to Africa, and we must fight it,” Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi said as he inspected the ruins. (The Independent)
