Kenya said on Sunday it had ordered all its security agencies on a high state of alert after recent bombings at the port city of Mombasa and a claim by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network that it had carried out the attacks.
”An anti-terrorism strategy had been implemented throughout the country, not just because of the latest threats from al-Qaeda, but since the November 28 attacks on the city of Mombasa,” said the director of Kenya’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Francis Sang.
Senior investigator William Lang’at said by telephone from Mombasa that ”the whole country is on top alert following a new spate of speculative and real terror threats from all corners.
”All our security forces — the army, the navy and the ordinary police — have been asked to get into action and offer more security against these new threats,” said Lang’at, a Kenyan deputy police commissioner.
”The Kenyan navy is now intensively patrolling the coastal waters, and more police officers have been deployed across the country in areas where foreign interests are located,” Lang’at said.
”Increasing security is the only thing we can do, especially when threats come from a group we cannot control, a group with no flag, no address or no headquarters.”
The two top police officers said security has been beefed up at buildings housing top tourist hotels and diplomatic missions in the capital.
”Although it may not be visible, we have many plainclothes security forces now patrolling all key areas that need to be protected,” Sang said.
Terrorist suspects attacked with missiles an Israeli plane taking off from Mombasa International Airport with 261 tourists aboard, but missed their target.
Five minutes later, suicide bombers exploded a car-bomb at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel near Mombasa, killing 16 people — 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and three bombers.
The officers were reacting to reports that al-Qaeda had claimed the attacks and threatened to carry out more on Israeli and US targets worldwide.
Al-Qaeda representative Sulaiman Abu Ghaith admitted in a voice recording posted earlier on Sunday on the jehadonline.org Islamist web site that the network was behind the botched missile attack on an Israel jet, as well as the bombing of the Israeli-owned hotel.
”The Crusader-Jewish alliance will no longer be immune from attack anywhere. We are going to strike at its vital installations and strategic interests with all means at our disposal,” Abu Ghaith said.
Lang’at also admitted on Sunday that the pace of investigations into the twin attacks was slow due to conflicting evidence from witnesses, some of who had led police into ”blind alleys”.
Thirteen people are still being held for questioning over the attacks, while another has been released due to lack of evidence connecting him to the case.
They include six Pakistanis, four Somalis, two Kenyans of Arab and Indian origins, and a Somali or Kenyan said to have sold the car that delivered the bomb to the hotel.
The al-Qaeda admission resurrects memories of the deadly bombing attacks at the US embassies in Nairobi and in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, on August 7, 1998 — all blamed on al-Qaeda.
The attacks killed 213 people, including 12 Americans, and injured more than 5 000 others in Nairobi, while 11 Tanzanians died and several others were injured in a near-simultaneous attack in Dar es Salaam. – Sapa-AFP