Evidence Links al Qaeda to Kenya Attacks
Dec. 2, 2002 -- 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.
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.
The Arab satellite service al Jazeera reported late today that it received an e-mail from al Qaeda claiming responsibility for the Kenya attacks. American officials told ABCNEWS they believe the message is authentic.
The purported al Qaeda statement, posted on a Web site, said the attacks were aimed at "the Crusade-Jewish coalition."
According to an ABCNEWS translation, it said the attackers were "returning once again to hit this treacherous coalition, but this time it's against the Jews, thereby delivering the following message: what you practice in terms of damage and occupation of our sanctities and criminal acts against our people in Palestine, killing children, women and the elderly and destroying homes and pulling out trees and the continuous siege will not go without you suffering from similar acts that are more effective if God permits."
Prioritizing Threats
Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city, is the site from where al Qaeda is believed to have plotted the 1998 bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
With easy access to weapons and many foreign tourists, the city represents the kind of center for soft-target attacks experts say al Qaeda has been seeking as Western countries tighten their security.
"Mombasa represents to them as a place where they can have a safe haven, as a place where they can meld into the society, as a place where they can carry out attacks on soft targets," said Ted Dagne, an Africa specialist with Congressional Research Services.
President Bush called Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi today to offer condolences for the victims of the attacks. In an early-morning telephone conversation, Bush also offered U.S. assistance in the investigation, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
The United States has been helping behind the scenes for days.
But in Washington today, lawmakers were more concerned about surface-to-air missiles landing in terrorist hands, and they issued warnings over threats to commercial planes flying in the United States.
Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee called on the Bush administration to act quickly and effectively to protect U.S. commercial airlines and air travelers, as other considered how easy such weapons are to acquire.
During the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, the United States provided hundreds of sophisticated surface-to-air Stinger missiles to the mujahideen, or resistance fighters, via the Pakistani intelligence services.
Experts estimate that between 300 to 400 Stinger missiles are missing.
Many shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles weigh about 30 pounds and are about 5 feet long, compact enough to be stuffed into a large duffel bag. Experts estimate that the missiles can be secured on the arms black market for a few thousand dollars.
"The hardest question, the most worrisome question of all, is how many of these Stingers are still out there and how many have fallen into al Qaeda hands," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
The SA-7, the Russian-made surface-to-air missile used in last week's Kenya attacks, is far less sophisticated than the Stinger missile. But it can hit a target at an altitude of about 10,000 feet and experts say the SA-7 can pose a threat to a slow-moving commercial aircraft.
SA-7s were reportedly recovered from from al Qaeda safe houses in Afghanistan. And al Qaeda is also believed to have previously fired missiles at U.S. aircraft in Yemen.
ABCNEWS' Brian Ross, Pierre Thomas, Beverley Lumpkin and John McWethy contributed to this report.