Lawless Somalia 'a threat'

2008-08-07 14:05

Nairobi - Peace in Somalia is essential to guarantee security in Kenya, Prime Minister Rail Odinga said on Thursday in a speech marking the deadly 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

"A lawless Somalia threatens Kenya's security," Odinga said, speaking at a ceremony commemorating the victims of the massive car bomb that ripped through the US embassy in Nairobi on August 7 1998.

"We need to build a new strategic involvement with popular voices in Somalia," he said, warning that global terrorism would continue if just and peaceful resolutions to the world's major conflicts were not found.

"We have suffered three major terrorist attacks in our short history, we will not allow a fourth one to happen," he said, stressing that Kenya was actively hunting fugitives suspected of involvement in the 1998 attacks.

The twin attacks 10 years ago left 213 people dead in Nairobi, including 12 Americans, and 11 in Dar es Salaam, where a ceremony was also held on Thursday. Thousands were injured in the bombings.

Officials in the Kenyan police's anti-terrorist unit said last week that a key suspect in the bombings, Comoran national Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, narrowly escaped arrest during a police raid in the Indian Ocean resort town of Malindi.

Mohammed, one of the most wanted men in Africa, is also believed to have been involved in twin anti-Israeli attacks on a Mombasa hotel and an airliner in 2002.

Both Odinga and Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said the country had taken measures to prevent a recurrence of a terrorist attack.

"Security agencies are on the alert to ensure that this tragedy will not occur again," said Saitoti who also attended the commemoration.

But survivors of the blast who attended the ceremony lamented a lack of support from the government.

"Our cries of help have fell on deaf ears," Naomi Kerongo told the gathering at the ceremony, held at the former site of the US embassy which has been turned into a memorial park.

"Let the government support us... we no longer get medication, most of us are suffering side effects," another survivor, Mary Nderitu, said.

- AFP