Kenyan bomb kills 11, Israeli jet escapes missiles
2002-11-28 11:32
William Maclean and Mark Heinrich
Nairobi/Jerusalem - At least 11 people were killed by a car bomb which rammed into a hotel used by Israeli tourists in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Thursday, police said.
At the city's airport, two missiles were fired at an Israeli Arkia airliner carrying 261 passengers as it took off, but the missiles missed, Israeli officials said.
Israeli officials were quick to point fingers for both attacks at the al-Qaeda network, blamed by Washington for the September 11 attacks last year on the United States.
"I can see eight bodies in the lobby. Most appear to be adult men," a witness said by telephone from outside the wreckage of the Mombasa Paradise hotel. Police said 11 were confirmed dead, six of them Kenyans.
Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli Army Radio: "To my regret there are two dead, two children." Israeli television separately reported that there were three Israeli dead, two of them children.
No claim of responsibility
At least seven people were injured by the explosion, one of them a child, Zubeida Dadani, director of patient services at the main hospital in Mombasa, told CNN. "They are all Israelis," she said.
"Just after a group of tourists were brought to the hotel, I saw a white Pajero forcing its way into the gate," said a barman at a hotel opposite the Mombasa Paradise, adding the attack happened about 07:30.
"It had three people of Arabic origin and after it got to the reception area I heard an explosion and the whole hotel was on fire."
There was no claim of responsibility for the two attacks, reported within minutes of each other. Most of the tourists at the hotel were believed to be Israelis.
"This (today) looks like another orchestrated attack. Indications are it is another wake-up call from hell by al-Qaeda," said a senior Israeli diplomatic source. Israeli media reports said the hotel was Israeli-owned.
The United States blamed Islamic militant Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network for two 1998 truck bomb attacks on US embassies in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam in which 224 people were killed and thousands injured.
It launched retaliatory missile attacks on al-Qaeda bases soon after those bombings. Al-Qaeda was blamed again for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3 000 and ignited the US "war on terror" and its military campaign against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The Mombasa car bomb blasted the Paradise Hotel used by Israelis and other foreign tourists.
Missiles fired at airliner
"There's smoke and there's fire," a Mombasa resident said from outside the hotel as ambulances sped away.
A senior hospital official said the injured were "all foreign (white) and have different injuries. Some have bruises, others have deep cuts and some have metal objects stuck in their bodies."
The Israeli foreign ministry said two missiles had been fired at the airliner at Mombasa airport but missed. Israel security sources said all the passengers aboard the Arkia plane were safe and it was continuing to Tel Aviv.
It was due to land in Israel about 12:40.
A woman who gave her name as Neima told Israeli radio by phone that she had just arrived at the hotel with a group of tourists from Israel when the hotel lobby was shaken by the blast.
"People were cut up in the legs, arms, all over their bodies. Everything was burned up," she said.