The entire world needs prayers for peace: 3 Israelis, 9 Kenyans die in twin attacks on Israeli targets in Mombasa (UPDATE) (20:40)
jpost.com
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Jerusalem Post Staff and The Associated Press Nov. 28, 2002
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In nearly simultaneous attacks, suicide bombers killed 15 people at an Israeli-owned seaside resort Thursday and assailants fired two missiles at a chartered Arkia airliner carrying Israeli tourists home from a beach holiday.
Three of the victims were Israelis and two were identified this evening as children, Noy and Dvir Anter, aged 12 and 13, of the Ariel community in the West Bank. Their mother Ora is among the wounded, and is listed in serious condition, Channel 2 television reported. Their younger sister, Adva, 8, was lightly injured.
A previously unknown militant group issued a statement in Beirut, Lebanon claiming responsibility. However, the complexity of the daring attacks cast suspicion on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, which bombed two US embassies in east Africa and killed 231 people four years ago.
The deadly attack at the beach-front Paradise Hotel, 20 kilometers (15 miles) north of the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, occurred about 8:35 a.m. local time as new guests were checking in and others were eating breakfast.
According to witnesses, a green, all-terrain vehicle carrying three men smashed through the main gate to the sprawling hotel compound, a collection of buildings surrounded by palm trees that stretch to a nearby sandy white beach along the Indian Ocean.
The vehicle sped to the front of the four-story hotel. One man jumped from the vehicle, sprinted into the reception area and detonated a bomb. His two companions then triggered a bomb in the vehicle, witnesses said.
The huge blasts shattered windows and masonry along the front of the hotel, incinerated vehicles parked nearby and set fire to grass roofs of the outbuildings, reducing their wooden frames to smoldering hulks. Stone walls were all that remained of the lobby.
The dead included three Israelis, nine Kenyans, believed to be hotel staff, and the three unidentified bombers, police spokesman King'ori Mwangi said.
The attack was grimly reminiscent of last month's bombing on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, in which more than 190 people, mostly foreign tourists, were killed.
"It was a big blast. I was thrown to the ground and the windows shattered," said Zainul Jeddha, a Kenyan hotel worker who was in her room on the fourth floor. "There was screaming, there was crying, it was chaos."
About five minutes before the hotel attack, two missiles streaked by an Israeli-owned jet as it left the Mombasa international airport. The aircraft, owned by the Arkia charter company, landed safely about 5$ hours later in Tel Aviv. None of the 261 passengers and 10 crew members was hurt.
Police said the missiles were fired from a white all-terrain vehicle about two kilometers (one mile) from the airport. Three or four Arab-looking men were seen leaving the area in the van, police said. Investigators found two missile casings near the airport but had made no arrest.
Also Thursday in northern Israel, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire outside a Likud Party office and at passengers in a nearby bus terminal in Beit Shean. Five Israelis were killed and dozens wounded in the attack. The gunmen died in the ensuing firefight.
The Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack during the Likud party primary.
At the hotel, seven charred bodies lay strewn around the lobby before Red Cross workers put them in body bags and removed them. Hundreds of people massed outside the hotel's gates as Kenyan authorities sifted through the wreckage.
Tour buses ferried survivors to other hotels in the area.
All that was left of the attackers' vehicle was a couple of suspension springs. Around 10 meters (30 feet) from the wrecked lobby, a distraught survivor marked a small piece of burnt hair and skull with an index card so the remains could be properly buried under Jewish law.
Rebecca Zevi, 30, an Israeli who was working at the hotel, said she was in her room getting ready to go out when she heard "a huge wham."
"All the glass shattered. I ran to see what was happening. There was screaming," she said. "I don't know why this happened to us."
In Washington, US President George W. Bush, deplored the violence and offered US help in the investigation. The European Union said the attacks underline the need "for international cooperation against terrorism in all its forms."
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put the Mossad spy agency in charge of investigating the twin attacks. The agency hunted down and killed nearly all the Palestinians believed responsible for kidnapping and killing 11 Israelis during the Munich Olympics in 1972.
"Our hand will reach them," Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, said of the attackers. "If anyone doubted that the citizens of the state of Israel cannot stand up to the killers of children, this doubt will be removed."
In Beirut, a fax sent to news organizations by the "The Government of Universal Palestine in Exile, The Army of Palestine" said its units carried out two attacks in Kenya to mark the anniversary of the Nov. 29, 1947 decision by the United Nations to partition Palestine and allow creation of a Jewish state. The statement did not specify either of Thursday's attacks.
Israeli and Kenyan authorities, however, suspected al-Qaida, although Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel could not rule out Palestinian extremists.
Israeli government adviser Zalman Shoval said al-Qaida's past activities in east Africa and the manner of the attacks pointed to the group, which carried out almost simultaneous bombings to the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 231 people and injured about 5,000.
"We can't rule out the group that struck at us in 1998," Kenyan Vice President Musalia Mudavadi said, adding that Kenyan intelligence had received reports the country could be targeted again by terrorists.
If al-Qaida was responsible for the attack, it would be the first by the terrorist group on Israeli interests.
There have, however, been indications the organization might begin targeting Israelis to win support among Muslims angry over Israeli actions against Palestinians.
Kenya's Indian Ocean coast is a predominantly Muslim region, and is a popular tourist destination for Israelis, Americans, and Europeans. However, Dia'a Rashwan of Egypt's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies said al-Qaida operatives can move among the region's Muslim population without attracting much attention. Kenya's underpaid and understaffed police force has difficulty tracking them down. |
