Kenyan bombing investigation work continues

Kenyan and Israeli authorities were today working on reassembling hundreds of shattered fragments of the vehicle used in a suicide attack three days ago on a resort hotel frequented by Israeli tourists in which 16 people were killed.

Charles Jamu, a Kenyan bomb specialist, said investigators had found parts of two cylinders believed to be used in gas welding which they suspect were fastened to the vehicle’s underside to create a bigger explosion.

Parts of the vehicle, described by witnesses as a green four-wheel drive, were found up to 2,788 feet from the site of Thursday’s blast at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel, he said.

Ten Kenyans, three Israelis and the three bombers died in the blast.

Police were still holding several Pakistani and Somali men for questioning in connection with the bombing and a slightly earlier abortive missile attack on an Israeli-owned plane taking off from Mombasa airport.

Investigators laid out the parts, including pieces of engine block, the propellor shaft and chassis, on a patch of grass in the unfinished shell of a casino under construction in the resort complex. A sudden heavy downpour soaked the crucial evidence.

Welders use two cylinders for welding, one containing oxygen, the other acetylene, a colourless gas.

Kenyan police officials said Israeli authorities wanted to take the vehicle parts as well as the launchers and missile casings found at the site from where the missiles were fired back to Israel.

But the Kenyans are insisting that the evidence remain in the East African nation.

“None of this evidence is going back to Israel. This evidence is our responsibility,” Jamu said.

Two shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles fired on Wednesday morning narrowly missed the Arika Airlines Boeing 757 charter, which had 271 passengers and crew on board.

A few minutes later, a vehicle packed with explosives broke through the gate at the oceanside Paradise Hotel. One attacker ran into the lobby and blew himself up, while two others exploded the vehicle, witnesses said.

Police have found the registration plate for the vehicle used in the suicide attack, but it is unclear who its owners are.

There has been no progress tracing the vehicle used in the missile attack, although Kenyan officials believe it still is in the country.

On Friday, Police Commissioner Philemon Abong’o touted the detention of several Pakistanis and Somalis on a boat in Mombasa harbour as a breakthrough.

But Mir Mohammed, a Pakistani in his 40s who was left by police to watch the 50-foot wooden vessel, said he and his five Pakistani and three Somali colleagues had just been fishing for sharks in the Indian Ocean off Somalia when the boat took on water, forcing them into Mombasa harbour.

Neighbouring Somalia has been cited by US officials as a possible haven for terrorists, and weapons and false passports are readily available there.

Mohammed said the boat put into Mombasa harbour on November 23 for repairs.

Immigration officials seized the crewmen’s passports – all issued in Somalia - and told them to remain there, he said. Police returned to pick up Mohammed’s colleagues several hours after Thursday’s attacks.

“We were looking for some food, we were just trying to make a living to feed our families,” Mohammed said.

Police officials refused to comment on Mohammed’s story, which he told in Urdu through an interpreter.

In Mombasa, about 1,000 people packed into the Roman Catholic Holy Ghost Cathedral Sunday to pray for the attack victims.

Hundreds also gathered in Mawemi village, a few miles from the Paradise Hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa, for the burial of three Kenyan traditional dancers who were killed in the suicide attack as they welcomed Israeli tourists.