More al-Qaida attacks feared

Security officials and diplomats in the Gulf, the Far East and East Africa were tonight trying to piece together the strands of intelligence pointing to imminent major al-Qaida terror attacks.

British Airways flights to Kenya remained grounded as Kenyan police hunted for one of Osama bin Laden’s top henchmen who was at large in the country and thought to be planning an attack on an airliner, embassies and foreign residences.

And expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia stayed indoors following a US warning about another possible terror attack in Jeddah.

Two Britons were among 34 people killed in the capital Riyadh in Monday night’s synchronised suicide bombings that targeted Westerners in their homes.

One American official said intelligence “indicated that there was going to be a stream of attacks, and so we have confidence that has begun.”

Analysts said the al-Qaida leadership has been severely weakened by 19 months of counter-terrorism operations, and is seeking to prove it can still attack US interests to capitalise on Monday’s strikes in Saudi Arabia.

Some plans being detected by US and foreign intelligence agencies appear to have been in the works for months, if not longer, but are being brought to fruition quickly, they said.

“They would like to do them all at the same time and have the whole world go up,” one US terrorism official told the Washington Post. “This is a very bad patch.”

More than 1,000 British holidaymakers are stranded in Kenya after BA and British charter airlines halted all flights to the country. BA was bussing some passengers to neighbouring Tanzania for flights home.

The alert was sparked when the Kenyan security minister said a key member of al-Qaida, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, was in the country.

Mohammed is said to have masterminding the devastating US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, as well as last November’s bombing of a hotel popular with Israelis on the Kenyan coast.

As suicide bombers attacked the Paradise Hotel a few miles north of Mombasa, suspected al-Qaida men tried to shoot down a plane full of Israeli tourists leaving Mombasa airport for Tel Aviv.

The two surface-to-air missiles just missed their intended target.

Today, Britain’s High Commissioner in Kenya, Edward Clay, said the flight ban would remain indefinitely because of the “very high” terror threat.

The move severely threatened tourism, the lifeblood of the East African country’s fragile economy.

About 500,000 foreigners visit Kenya each year, generating revenues of about £170 million – Britons make up the biggest group taking big game safaris or beach holidays, with 80,000 flying annually.

National Security Minister Chris Murungaru, who raised the original alert about Mohammed, called the ban “extreme”, saying it made it appear “like terrorists are making a moral score, a moral victory.”

But security was beefed up around the British High Commission and the US embassy in the capital Nairobi.

Security was also tight in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Armed guards set up new checkpoints, searched cars and quizzed hundreds of drivers.

Monday night’s attacks forced the ruling royal family into having to confront extremism in the strict Islamic kingdom.

Islamic cleric, Sheik Yousef al-Aamer, who conducted today’s noon prayers at the Amir Saad bin Mohammed Mosque, condemned the attacks.

Quoting extensively from the Koran, he said the bombings were against the teachings of Islam.

“Those who conducted these acts are non-believers. They have attacked Muslims who are their own people and people of other faiths who are innocent and could not defend themselves. Hell fire awaits them,” he said in Oraija, one of poorest districts in the city.

Prince Mohammed Saad from the Interior Ministry, who attended the prayers, said he was convinced “a foreign hand” was involved in the strikes.

US officials have warned Americans of possible attacks in the busy Red Sea port of Jeddah, 190 miles south-west of Riyadh.

“(We have) received an unconfirmed report that a possible terrorist attack in the Alhamra district of Jeddah may occur in the near future,” the warning said. “US citizens are encouraged to maintain a high level of vigilance.”

The families of diplomats living in the area have been temporarily rehoused.

In the Philippines, police said today that they were looking for an man who claimed on a Manila radio station he was offered money in Saudi Arabia to bomb one of targeted compounds where he worked as a technician.

The Filipino said a group of “Arab-looking men” he befriended offered him a large sum of money in exchange for planting a bomb. He said he returned to the Philippines in April in fear of his life.

Saudi officials have said the attacks were linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network, which has long vowed to rid Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, of any Western influence.

“This organisation has always had the Saudi government in their sights,” said Alex Standish, the editor of Jane’s Intelligence Digest in London.

“By targeting specifically foreigners working within the kingdom, it’s ... economic sabotage,” he added. “They are plotting the downfall of the Saudi royal family.”

Saudi Arabia is home to six million expatriate workers, including about 30,000 Britons and 35,000 Americans, many of whom work in the oil, defence and medical industries.