Israel says al Qaeda top suspect in Kenya attacks

Israel said yesterday al Qaeda remained the prime suspect in the bomb and missile attacks on Israelis in Kenya, and Washington warned of an increased terror threat in East Africa.

Kenyan police said they had found two fragments of the bomb which killed 16 people at an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa on Thursday and witnesses said the pieces were taken away by Israeli bomb experts.

Briefing the Israeli cabinet in Jerusalem, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted by a security source as saying: "The suspicion that al Qaeda was involved is growing stronger, although there is no concrete evidence."

US officials suspect the Somali-based group Al-Itihad al-Islamiya, which they said had links with al Qaeda, target of US President George W. Bush's war on terror after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year.

A farmer believed to be the last person in contact with the suicide bombers said one of the attackers appeared nervous minutes before the attack.

Kenyan police have held six Pakistanis and four Somalis for questioning since the bombing and a near-simultaneous missile attack that narrowly missed an Israeli jet taking off nearby with 261 passengers.

But they said they had found no links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda or to al-Itihad.

Al Qaeda is widely blamed for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which 224 people died, most of them Africans.

Al-Itihad has a record of violence in Somalia and neighbouring Ethiopia and links between Itihad members and al Qaeda do exist, experts say.

But no Somali has ever been reported in the top or middle ranks of bin Laden's network, and Itihad's overriding aim is to establish an Islamic state in Somalia, they say.

"In the pantheon of worldwide Islamic radicalism, al-Itihad is small potatoes (unimportant)," US academic Ken Menkhaus wrote of Itihad.

Somalia's Transitional National Government has condemned the attacks and denied charges by its warlord opponents that it harbours Itihad members suspected of involvement in violence.

Israel sent investigators to the scene of the attack, which killed three Israelis, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the Mossad spy agency to hunt down those responsible.

Washington said on Saturday it had received information that similar attacks might also be launched in the tiny nation of Djibouti, which borders Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

"The Department of State believes that Djibouti is one of a number of countries in East Africa where there may be an increased terrorist threat," it said in a public announcement.

It also repeated a warning against US citizens travelling to Yemen, which lies across the Red Sea from Djibouti.

The Pentagon is establishing a command centre in Djibouti as it increases the number of US troops - many of them Marines or elite special forces - in the Horn of Africa to 1,200 from 800 to hunt down militant groups.