Britain closes Kenyan mission after terror threat

The British High Commission in Kenya has been closed until further notice because of a ”specific” threat, the mission’s spokesman said in Nairobi tonight.

“I can confirm that we have received a specific threat against the High Commission, and therefore we have decided to close until further notice,” said Mark Norton, press and public affairs officer.

He said he could not elaborate on the nature of the threat to the building located in a semi-residential neighbourhood called Upper Hill just outside the central business district in the Kenyan capital.

The closure comes a week after twin terror attacks on Israeli targets on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast took the lives of 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and at least two suicide bombers.

In August 1998, a car bomb exploded at the US Embassy in Nairobi, killed 219 people, including 12 Americans, and injuring 5,000 others.

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network has been blamed for that attack, and President George Bush tonight blamed al-Qaida for last week’s twin attacks in Kenya.

At the White House he said: “I am concerned about al-Qaida anywhere. I believe that al-Qaida was involved in the African bombings in Kenya.

“I believe al-Qaida hates freedom. I believe al-Qaida will strike anywhere they can in order to disrupt a civil society and that’s why we’re on the hunt.”

Earlier, Kenyan police revealed they have arrested the man who sold the 4X4 vehicle used in last week’s suicide bombing of a British owned beach resort hotel that killed at least 15 people.

Deputy Police Commissioner William Langat said the man was picked up last night in Mombasa and has told police he sold the green Mitsubishi Pajero to “two Arab-looking young men” for £3,100.

Langat refused to provide any more details.

Many of Kenyans living on the country’s Indian Ocean coast are of Arab descent. Traders and fishermen from the Arabian peninsula have been visiting the coast for centuries.

Langat said the vehicle had been bought in 1991 by a foreigner working for a Christian charity organisation. The vehicle is apparently still registered in the unidentified foreigner’s name, although he left Kenya in 1998.

He said there was no information on a second four-wheel drive vehicle that was seen driving away from the spot near Mombasa airport where unidentified men fired two surface-to-air missiles that narrowly missed an Israeli chartered airliner taking off with Israeli tourists on November 28.

The missile attempt took place only minutes before the suicide attack on the Paradise hotel 12 miles away

Langat said police were still holding 10 men believed to be Pakistanis and Somalis for questioning. He said their status was somewhere in between “suspects and not connected.