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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Somali group among Kenya suspects |
| 2002-11-29 |
| The 12 people so far held for questioning over Thursday's attacks on Israelis in Mombasa are all foreign nationals, Kenyan police say. "We have one American lady, one Spanish man ... there are six Pakistanis and four Somalis," a Kenyan police spokesman said. The Pakistanis and the Somalis were arrested for illegally entering the country, officials said. The American woman and her husband were detained as they checked out of the Le Soleil Beach Club about 90 minutes after the attacks. A Somali-based Islamist group and the al Qaeda network are at the top of a list of suspects in Thursday's terrorist attacks on Israeli tourists in Kenya, a senior Bush administration source tells CNN. The Somali group calls itself Al-Itihad al-Islamiya, and is also known by the acronym AIAI. This official and other U.S. officials have made clear they believe AIAI, which operates in Somalia, is associated with al Qaeda. The source did acknowledge that evidence gathered so far in the investigation is "pointing towards al Qaeda" due to the location and the circumstances of the attacks. Al Qaeda is known to operate in Kenya. In addition, this source noted the terrorists carried out two almost simultaneous attacks on Israelis -- another hallmark of al Qaeda. They like big bloody operations with a high death toll, it's good for tv ratings. The mother of the American being questioned told CNN her daughter and her husband, a Spaniard with a resident alien card, were visiting her childhood home. The mother added that an embassy official told her the couple would be released Friday night. Picked them up because they checked out of their hotel right after the bombings, I think I would have bugged out myself. Investigators are looking at whether al Qaeda was behind the attacks. Israel's Mossad spy agency, which has a long record of hunting terror suspects, is leading the investigation into the twin attacks on Israeli tourists in Kenya. There was no publicized evidence against the network, but analysts said the synchronized raids were a hallmark of al Qaeda's operations and speculated that as its first direct attacks on Israelis, they were intended to rally Muslim support. Nothing like killing Jews to rally Muslim support. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #3 Try not to go LGF on all Pakistanis, I have met a few cool engineers here in Silicon Valley. |
| Posted by: PJ 2002-11-30 00:42:24 |
| #2 Yes, but only to provide fake documents for others. |
| Posted by: Brian 2002-11-29 16:12:07 |
| #1 Okay, I'm curious: is there EVER a Pakistani who's entered a country LEGALLY? |
| Posted by: Steve White 2002-11-29 15:39:01 |