'Army of Palestine' says it attacked hotel and plane

11.30am

MOMBASA, Kenya - A group called the "Army of Palestine" has claimed responsibility for the apparently synchronised attacks on a hotel and Israeli airliner in Kenya.

A fax from a Lebanese media organisation sent to the news agency Reuters in Beirut, said the previously unheard-of "Army of Palestine" has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Suicide bombers blew up a hotel full of Israelis in Kenya killing 14 people, minutes after missiles narrowly missed an Israeli airliner taking off nearby.

Police said they were questioning two people seized near the scene of the hotel bomb.

Witnesses spoke of Israeli tourists and other survivors, streaked with blood and dust, staggering to the beach from the shattered Mombasa Paradise resort hotel and screaming for water after the attackers rammed a car bomb into the hotel lobby.

There were discrepancies in the casualty figures. "There should be initial indications that 14 people have died," Kenya's Interior Minister Julius Sunkuli told Reuters.

Police earlier said three suicide attackers had killed themselves, six Kenyans and two Israelis. Israeli officials said three Israelis were killed, two of them children. Eighty people were wounded, Kenya's ambassador to Israel said.

Wreckage of the bombers' car was left 15m from the smouldering rubble of the entrance to the hotel, reported to be Israeli-owned and where most guests were Israeli.

A human jaw lay on the ground near the mangled metal.

"Around 7.30, we heard a massive explosion. The entire building shook," witness Kelly Hartog wrote on the website of Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper.

"I saw people covered with blood, including children. Everyone seemed to be screaming. From the dining room we were herded out to the beach. There were no medics. People were screaming for water.

"I tried to occupy myself tending to the children. 'I want to go home,' they said. 'Where are my parents?"'

Minutes before the hotel blast, missiles were fired at an Israeli Arkia airliner carrying 261 passengers as it took off from Mombasa's airport.

"About 2km from the airport, two missiles were fired at the aircraft from a white Pajero (4WD) by some people who are suspected to be of Arab origin. Both missiles missed the aircraft," police spokesman Kimgori Mwangi said.

Ezra Gozlan, a passenger sitting at the back of the plane, said he saw a missile fly over the wing moments after take-off.

"All the wheels were in the air and then we heard the explosion. It (the missile) went about one metre above the wing," he said. The plane landed safely in Israel, escorted by Israeli air force jets.

"We spotted two white smoke trails passing us on the left side, from the rear to the front, and disappearing after a few seconds," pilot Rafi Marik said.

A Kenyan security source said it was believed the attackers used shoulder-borne missile launchers.

The hotel attackers were also described as of Arab appearance and also driving a four-wheeled-drive Pajero they had turned into a suicide bomb.

"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 across the road from the Mombasa Paradise, adding the attack happened at about 8.30am (6.30pm NZT).

"It had three people of Arab origin and after it got to the reception area I heard an explosion."

Investigators said they did not rule out a link between the crash of a light plane which took off from Mombasa on Thursday, injuring at least seven, and the two attacks on Israelis.

Israeli and Kenyan officials were quick to accuse the al Qaeda network, blamed by Washington for the September 11 attacks last year on the United States that killed about 3000 people and for the bloody 1998 truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that left 224 people dead.

If that judgment is correct, these would be the first direct attacks on Israelis by the fugitive Osama bin Laden's group.

"Indications are it is another wake-up call from hell by al Qaeda," said a senior Israeli diplomat. Nabil Abdel-Fattah, assistant director of the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said the timing seemed to be aimed at coinciding with the Likud party leadership vote in Israel on Thursday.

"It is to show the (Ariel) Sharon option, the Likud option, is not a solution to the Palestine problem," he said.

A statement faxed to Reuters in Beirut said however they were carried out by the "Army of Palestine" to mark the anniversary of the 1947 UN resolution partitioning Palestine between Arabs and Jews. There was no confirmation of the claim.

Bin Laden and his followers, forced into hiding by the US campaign against their bases in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, were also suspected of involvement on the October 12 Bali bomb which killed 185.

US officials said in June Sudanese authorities had arrested a suspected al Qaeda militant who claimed to have fired a shoulder-launched missile at a US aircraft in Saudi Arabia.

The discovery of an empty but scorched launcher at the Saudi air base prompted the FBI to issue an intelligence alert that terrorists might try to shoot down an American commercial aircraft with shoulder-fired missiles.

Kenya's coastal region has a large Muslim population with traditional links to Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

"We had similar attacks in 1998, the world including our friends have not helped us enough," Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi said on Thursday. "We will do what we can to fight back."

In northern Israel, suspected Palestinian gunmen killed at least four Israelis and wounded several more on Thursday.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: The Middle East