Kikambala (Kenya) November 30
Six Pakistanis and three Somalis were among 12 persons held in Kenya
in connection with anti-Israeli attacks that left 16 persons dead near
Mombasa, the police said.
Kenyan police spokesman King’ori Mwangi said those in custody
included a US national, a Spaniard and a Kenyan.
Outspoken Kenyan Muslim preacher Sheikh Ali Shee rejected
intelligence claims linking him to the attacks.
A Kenyan police spokesman said nine of those detained were picked
up from two boats intercepted at sea apparently trying to leave
Mombasa.
A hotel in the Indian Ocean resort was devastated Thursday morning
when a bomb-packed vehicle rammed into its reception area.
Minutes later, two missiles were fired at a charter plane of
Israel’s Arkia airlines with 261 passengers aboard as it took off
from the airport. Both narrowly missed their target.
Kenyan investigators, joined by Israeli and US colleagues, pursued
leads into the attacks amid growing suspicion that these may have been
carried out by Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network, blamed for a bomb
attack on the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998.
Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities sealed off the blackened shell
of the hotel hit by the car bomb attack. Also, Israeli officials
collected debris including launchers and two missile casings from the
site where the two missiles were launched. AFP, AP
