Al-Qaida admits hotel attack
The statement, posted on an Islamic website, called last Thursday’s attacks a Ramadan greeting to the Palestinian people and referred to the al-Qaida attacks against US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 231 people and wounded more than 5,000.
“At the same place where the ‘Jewish Crusader coalition’ was hit four years ago ... here the fighters of al-Qaida came back once again to strike heavily against that evil coalition. But this time, it was against Jews,” the statement said.
The veracity of the claim could not be verified. US counter-terrorism officials said they considered the claim credible.
Three suicide bombers attacked the Paradise Hotel, killing 10 Kenyans and three Israelis. Minutes before the bombing, two Strela missiles narrowly missed an Israeli plane departing from Mombasa’s airport, in what was the first phase of the dual attack on Israelis in Kenya.
The five-page claim was made in the name of The Political Office of al-Qaida Jihad Organisation.
It said: “We send them (Jews) a message: Your practices in corrupting the Earth, occupying sacred places, criminal acts against our families in Palestine ... all your practices will not pass peacefully without firing back,” it said. “Your children for ours, your women for ours, your elders for ours ... And in return for (your) siege on lives and livelihoods, a siege of fear and terror that we will impose on you wherever you are, land, sea or air.”
It pledged further attacks would be carried out, saying “it is a war between faith and the infidel, between right and wrong, between justice and injustice.” The statement called the US-led war on terrorism “fragile”, saying fighters successfully attacked the Kenya hotel “at a time when the whole world stands against them, and indeed is hunting them”.
The only other claim of responsibility came shortly after the attacks from the previously unknown Army of Palestine. Palestinian officials have denied any involvement by Palestinian groups.
It also emerged yesterday that Israeli intelligence knew terrorists were operating in Kenya. However, an army intelligence chief said they did not have information terrorists were planning to attack Israeli targets there.
Brigadier General Yossi Kupperwasser told a parliamentary committee that Israel did not have specific information that attacks were being planned in Mombasa, Knesset spokesman Giora Pordes said.
Germany and Australia put out advisories in mid-November warning their citizens against visiting Mombasa, based on intelligence that terror groups were planning attacks there.
Asked whether Israel had similar information, Ms Pordes quoted Brig Gen Kupperwasser as saying: “No, there was no concrete and exact information. There was general information, but not regarding Israeli targets, rather on the attempt to carry out an attack in Kenya.
Danny Yatom, a former head of the Mossad, said Israel gets so many warnings, most are not taken seriously.
If Israel had more concrete information, it would have acted to prevent the attacks, he said.
Palestinian militant groups yesterday insisted they did not want to export their fight against Israel outside the region, after the alleged al-Qaida statement called the Kenya attacks a greeting to “our brothers in Palestine”.
Nafez Azaam of Islamic Jihad said: “We have no interest in transferring the battle to any field outside Palestine because our rights are here and our enemies are here.”
