Al-qaida blamed as unknown group claims attacks
The group describing itself as The Government of Universal Palestine in Exile, The Army of Palestine said the attacks were timed to mark the eve of the anniversary of the November 29, 1947, decision by the United Nations to partition Palestine and allow creation of a Jewish state.
Israel vowed to track down those behind the twin attacks and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put the Mossad spy agency in charge of the investigation.
"Our hand will reach them," Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said of the attackers. "If anyone doubted that the citizens of the state of Israel cannot stand up to the killers of children, this doubt will be removed."
Yesterday's car bombing in the Kenyan tourist city of Mombasa comes four years after a terrorist attack on an embassy in the eastern African country. A massive truck bomb exploded outside the US Embassy in Nairobi on August 7, 1998.
Simultaneously, another bomb went off outside the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The attacks killed 224 people and injured thousands.
The United States brought four men accused of having links to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network brought to trial for the attacks. They were jailed for life without parole.
US prosecutors indicted bin Laden in connection with the embassy bombings. Washington also blamed him and his al-Qaida group for the September 11 attacks on the United States last year.
Though bin Laden has never claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, he has supported the actions. For years, predominantly Muslim Somalia, which borders Kenya to the east, had been home to a number of al-Qaida terrorist training camps and was known to have links to al-Ittihad al-Islami, a fundamentalist Muslim group. In March 2002, US officials said they no longer appeared to be in Somalia.
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