Evidence Links al Qaeda to Kenya Attacks

Dec. 2 -- Investigators have found two connections pointing to the role of al Qaeda in last week's two attacks in Kenya, officials at the FBI, the Pentagon and the CIA told ABCNEWS.

The Israelis have tentatively identified one of the suicide bombers who attacked an Israeli-owned resort hotel outside Mombasa last Thursday as a member of a known al Qaeda cell, officials told ABCNEWS.

An eyewitness described the other suicide bomber as speaking Swahili with an Arabic accent. Asked where he thought the bombers came from, Khamis Haro Deche replied: "Arabs from Arabia."

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

The second connection is the serial numbers on two Soviet-made missile launchers discovered near the Mombasa airport, shortly after terrorists unsuccessfully attempted to shoot down an Israeli Boeing 757 jetliner with 271 people on board. The failed missile attack came minutes before the attack on the hotel.

Officials told ABCNEWS the launchers come from the same batch as a surface-to-air missile fired in a failed attack against an American military jet in May at the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. U.S. security forces found what was left of the portable anti-aircraft missile after it had apparently been fired.

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The serial numbers on all the launchers "appear to be sequential," government sources said.

A suspect taken into custody in Sudan a month after the air base attack was allegedly trained by al Qaeda and was the head of a cell operating in Saudi Arabia. Officials told ABCNEWS in June that he fled after his missile failed to hit anything.

"The SA-7 fired in Saudi Arabia was identified as an al Qaeda operation," said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro. "The person who ultimately fired the weapon was caught. And he revealed the names of several other members of the al Qaeda cells."

The closeness of the serial numbers suggests all the launchers were purchased as a group, and U.S. officials told ABCNEWS that there is little doubt that al Qaeda is the culprit in all the attacks.