The Hindu : Kenya attack: Probe trail leads to Al-Qaeda

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 03, 2002

International

International

Kenya attack: Probe trail leads to Al-Qaeda

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA (BAHRAIN) Dec. 2. Investigators of the bombing of an Israeli hotel in Mombasa are narrowing down their suspicions on two suspects who may have masterminded the attack that killed 13 people including three Israelis.

According to security analysts, the investigation trail is leading to Fazul, the leader of Al-Qaeda's East African cells since the mid-nineties and Abdullah Ahmad Abdullah.

Both are suspected to have masterminded the hotel attack as well as the attempt to shoot down a chartered Israeli passenger plane that had 260 people on board. Both suspects are believed to be members of the Jihad Islami, the operational arm of the Al-Qaeda.

Fazul's name had cropped up during investigations of the November 1996 hijack of an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Nairobi in which seven Israelis including five key officials of the Israeli Aircraft Industries were killed.

The probe so far indicates that around 25 Al-Qaeda activists were directly or indirectly involved in the hotel attack along with scores of others who played a supportive role, making it one of the largest operations which the group has mounted. It is now becoming increasingly evident that the Al-Qaeda had positioned back-up teams both near the hotel as well at the airport.

This was felt necessary in case the lead group failed to accomplish its mission.

The probe so far has indicated that two missile teams were kept at the airport.

The first was located at one end of the runway, while the second was estimated to be around 5 km from the airstrip's other end.

Apparently, the second group was positioned to shoot down the plane in case the first team missed its target due to plane drifting during take-off on account of shifts in the wind direction.

The missiles, it is concluded, missed their target because the plane was armed with infrared flares that were released and "fooled" these weapons.

The identity of the missiles used in the attack is yet to be established.

They could either be the Russian-built Strella missiles, the SA-7 Grail, or the U.S.-made Stingers that the Al-Qaeda might have acquired in Afghanistan and subsequently modified.

The missile groups immediately left the airport once the plane escaped the attack. Investigators are working on the theory that the back-up teams flew out of Mombasa to a destination in Somalia.

This hypothesis has gained some credence as the Mombasa international airport radars have recorded that a plane had landed at a point in south of Mombasa town and three planes took off from the same place, a short while later.

Al-Qaeda activists are apparently heavily concentrated in the Somalian fishing villages along the eastern coast between Kismoayo port and Ras Kaambooni, not far from the Kenyan border.

It is suspected that several hundred extremists who fought in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001 and early 2002 are now in this area.

The attack targeting Israelis in Mombasa is seen by analysts as an expression of the Al-Qaeda's new terror offensive that began on Oct. 6 with the suicide attack on the French oil tanker Limburg in the Gulf of Aden. This was followed by the Oct. 18 bombings in Bali, the Moscow theatre siege on Oct. 23 and the killing of a U.S. official, Laurence Foley, in Amman on Oct. 28.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

Stories in this Section

Global terrorism to dominate Indo-Russia summit

Russia, China pledge friendship

U.K. dossier on rights abuse in Iraq

London meet to draw up post-Saddam plan

Kenya attack: Probe trail leads to Al-Qaeda

Attack on Iraq could cost $200 billions

SLMC rebels 'suspend' Hakeem

Kissinger promises non-partisan probe

Deora calls on Singapore PM