KENYA: Kenyan authorities were last night holding two men in connection with the twin attacks on an Israeli-owned beach hotel and an Israeli chartered aircraft near the coastal capital, Mombasa.
Suicide bombers rammed into the Mombasa Paradise Hotel just after 8.30 a.m. yesterday, leaving at least 15 people dead and 80 injured. A near-simultaneous missile attack on a passenger airliner packed with tourists narrowly failed.
The perpetrators of both attacks, which Israel has vowed to avenge, were described by eyewitnesses and local police as "men with Arab features".
A previously unheard of group named the Army of Palestine claimed responsibility. Israel and Kenya said they were convinced Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group was to blame, although US officials said it was too early to point a finger.
If the attacks turn out to be the work of al-Qaeda - responsible for last year's September 11th attacks - it would be the group's first assault on an Israeli target.
Witnesses described a horrific scene at the Paradise Hotel, 20 km north of Mombasa, where a three- man team of suicide bombers crashed a Mitsubishi Pajero jeep through the main gate.
According to police one man ran into the lobby, where he blew himself up, while his two accomplices detonated the vehicle outside.
Afterwards body parts were scattered around the blazing ruins of the hotel. A human jaw lay near pieces of tangled wreckage. Several bodies were charred beyond recognition. Survivors ran on to the beach in search of water.
"There was blood all around. There was fire all around; children looking for their parents, parents looking for their children," said Mr Yahud Saroni, the Israeli owner of the hotel.
"I saw people covered with blood, including children. Everyone seemed to be screaming," a witness, Kelly Hartog ,wrote on the website of Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper. "I tried to occupy myself tending to the children. 'I want to go home,' they said. 'Where are my parents?' "
Mr Saroni said his staff reported seeing a small aircraft circling overhead at the time of the explosions. It dropped three bombs, one of which landed in the hotel pool, one on the roof and one in the ocean, he said.
About five minutes earlier, a missile attack on airliner owned by the Arkia charter company narrowly failed. The pilot, Mr Rafi Marik, reported seeing two "white smoke trails" pass by the left side of the Boeing 757-300 shortly after take-off from Mombasa's Moi international airport.
"My first association was a large bird hit the plane, then we immediately saw a strip of white smoke to the left side," he told reporters after landing at Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv, five hours later.
Asked by reporters how close the missiles came, Mr Marik said: "Not very far." According to a spokesman for Kenya's police, Mr King'ori Mwangi, the missiles were fired by shoulder from a site 2 km from the airport. Some reports described the missiles as heat-seeking Soviet-era SAM-7s, also known as "Strela" missiles.
According to Israeli aviation experts, the civilian aircraft may have employed military-style counter-measures, as certain Israeli passenger jets are equipped with electronic missile-detection systems.
Police and eyewitnesses said that men "of Arab origin" were believed to be responsible for both attacks. They said they were questioning two people seized near the scene of the hotel bomb.
The attacks were the second major terrorist offensive on Kenyan soil in less than four years. An al-Qaeda attack on the US embassy in Nairobi on August 7th, 1998, claimed 219 lives, more than 200 of which were Kenyan and just 12 American.
Yesterday, Kenyans again suffered the heaviest casualties. Most of the dead were traditional dancers who had been performing for a group of 60 tourists which had just arrived, according to Abase Gullet of the Kenyan Red Cross.
Israeli rescue services named two brothers among the Israeli dead from the Jewish settlement of Ariel on the West Bank.
Kenya's ambassador to Israel said: "I don't have any doubt this is al-Qaeda." The Kenyan Vice President, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, said local intelligence services had been picking up reports that the country could be targeted by terrorists, but did not elaborate.
Governments around the world condemned the attacks. The French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, described the killings as barbaric.
"Such acts . . . show the necessity of pursuing relentlessly our efforts to fight global terrorism," he wrote in a letter to the Israeli Prime Minister,Mr Ariel Sharon.