Author: Matthew Rosenberg
Publication: Associated Press
Date: November 29, 2002
With Israeli and American authorities
casting suspicion on al-Qaida or its allies, Kenyan authorities investigating
the twin assaults on Israeli targets there focused quickly on foreign suspects,
reporting Friday they had arrested six Pakistanis, four Somalis, an American
and a Spaniard.
Al-Qaida carried out almost simultaneous
bombings to the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed
231 people - including 12 Americans - and injured about 5,000.
Police spokesman King'ori Mwangi
said police picked up nine of the foreigners on an Indian Ocean beach in
the Mombasa area Friday morning. He declined to say if those suspects were
attempting to leave the country by boat.
Mwangi also said all but two of
the suspects in custody were traveling on what he termed "suspicious" passports,
perhaps alluding to Somalia where it is possible to obtain a travel document
in less than an hour. The lawless country has not had a functioning government
for more than a decade and is believed to be a refuge for some al-Qaida
operatives.
Two shoulder-fired surface-to-air
missiles were launched against an Israeli charter jet leaving Mombasa airport
Thursday morning, narrowly missing the Arika Airlines Boeing 757 with 261
passengers and 10 crew members. It landed safely in Tel Aviv with no casualties.
A few minutes later a vehicle packed
with explosives broke through the gate at the oceanside Paradise Hotel.
One attacker ran into the lobby and blew himself up, while two others exploded
the vehicle. The bombs killed 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and the three
bombers.
The American woman and a Spanish
man were taken into custody about 90 minutes after the bombing Thursday,
but may have mistakenly been caught in the police dragnet, sources close
to the investigation said.
But a top police official suggested
otherwise.
"Immediately after the incident
we detained two people for interrogation, arising from the information
they gave us ... by this morning, we were able to also detain 10 people,"
Police Commissioner Philemon Abong'o told reporters.
The American and the Spaniard, believed
traveling as husband and wife, were arrested as they checked out of a hotel
near to the one that was hit by the suicide attackers.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Peter Claussen
confirmed that an American woman, and a Spanish man with U.S. resident
status and believed to be her husband, were being detained. He declined
to identify the pair.
A police source, however, named
the woman as Alicia Kalhammer who was said to have used a Florida address
when she checked into Le Soleil Beach Club, 3 miles from the Paradise Hotel,
on Nov. 26. The source was unable to identify the man because the couple
checked in under Kalhammer's name.
In Washington, initial suspicion
centered on two groups: al-Qaida and al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a Somali Islamic
group suspected of having links to bin Laden's network, said a U.S. official,
speaking on condition of anonymity Friday. It is also possible the two
groups were working together, the official said.
Simultaneous attacks, like those
on the airliner and hotel, are an al-Qaida trademark, officials said, also
noting that bin Laden's recent audio message threatened Israelis. Over
the last year, U.S. intelligence has detected signs al-Qaida was looking
to strike in the Horn of Africa, the official said.
All of these groups have access
to the shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that were launched at the
airliner, officials said. Those missiles are easy to obtain on the international
arms market.
Officials said it appeared the two
missiles were fired by someone standing in a gully next to the airfield.
A white four-wheel drive vehicle had been parked at the spot about 1 mile
the airfield, police said.
They recovered missile launchers
and two missile casings, a government statement said. There was no official
information on the kind of missile used, but reports in the Israeli press
suggested it could have been a Russian-made Strela shoulder-fired surface-to-air
missile.
The Daily Nation newspaper reported
that investigators were examining possible links between the attacks and
five Pakistanis and two Somalis detained Monday near the port of Mombasa
after they were found with Somali passports all issued on the same day
in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Mwangi refused to comment on the reports.
The previously unknown Army of Palestine
claimed responsibility for the attacks. But Palestinian officials denied
that any Palestinian group was involved, and Kenyan and Israeli officials
have said they suspect Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network was behind the
attacks.
U.S. officials said it is too soon
to link any specific al-Qaida operatives to the plot. Several key al-Qaida
figures charged in connection with the 1998 embassy bombings remain at
large, including Saif al-Adil, bin Laden's security chief, and Abu Mohamed
al-Masri, a top trainer and operational planner who is also known as Abdullah
Ahmed Abdullah.
The leader of an militant Islamic
organization in London said he had been aware of threats against East Africa
for several days.
Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, head
of Al-Muhajiroun, said unspecified warnings had been posted on Web sites
and on Internet chat rooms.
"The warning has been sent to the
Muslim community around the world ... that Israel would pay a heavy price
in East Africa," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.
The hotel attack was a grim reminder
of the bombing last month of a disco on the Indonesian resort island of
Bali, in which more than 190 people, mostly foreign tourists, were killed.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
has put the Mossad spy agency in charge of investigating Thursday's attacks.
The Israeli army sent a team of
150 doctors, psychologists, and soldiers to Kenya's Indian Ocean coast
- a popular tourist destination - after the attacks.
Gilad Millo, a spokesman for the
Israeli Foreign Ministry, said 235 Israeli tourists, including 15 injured
in the blast, flew home Friday. The bodies of the three Israelis killed
in the attack were also onboard the evacuation flight.
