2002 Mombasa attacks

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2002 Mombasa hotel bombing
Location of Mombasa in Kenya
Location	Mombasa, Kenya
Date	November 28, 2002
Attack type	car bomb
Deaths	13
Injured	80
Perpetrator(s)	al Qaeda

v • d • e Attacks by al-Qaeda

1st WTC – PR Flight 434 – African embassies – USS Cole – Rizal Day – 2nd WTC/Pentagon/Shanksville – Ghriba – Limburg – Mombasa – Riyadh – Casablanca – Istanbul – Madrid – 2nd Khobar – Sinai – 1st London – 2nd London – Sharm el-Sheikh – Amman – Dahab Other Al-Qaeda-connected attacks: Iraq – Algeria – Afghanistan – Pakistan

The 2002 Mombasa attacks occurred on November 28, 2002 in Mombasa, Kenya. Three suicide bombers crashed an SUV through a guard gate and onto the lobby steps of the Paradise Hotel, a seaside resort. Also, a surface-to-air missile was fired at an Israeli charter plane, but it missed.

1 The attacks
- 1.1 Hotel bombing
- 1.2 Plane attack
2 Responsibility
- 2.1 Named suspects
3 Reactions
4 See also
5 External links
6 References

[edit] The attacks

[edit] Hotel bombing

The detonation of the vehicle killed 13 and injured 80. The dead were three Israeli tourists, two of them children, and ten Kenyan dancers who were performing to welcome 140 guests arriving from Israel by state-chartered jet.

[edit] Plane attack

Almost simultaneously, two shoulder-launched Strela 2 (SA-7) surface-to-air missiles were fired at another chartered Boeing 757 airliner owned by Israel-based Arkia Airlines as it took off from Moi International Airport. The missiles missed the aircraft, carrying 271 vacationers from Mombasa back to Israel, and it continued safely to Tel Aviv. United States intelligence officials reported that six live missiles were found at the scene.^{[citation needed]}

More than 250 Israelis, including the 80 wounded, were escorted home by armed guard in Israeli Air Force planes. The planes also carried the bodies of the three vacationers who were killed; two brothers, aged 12 and 14, and a 61-year-old man.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Responsibility

According to the New York Times, United States intelligence officials immediately announced that a Somali group linked to al-Qaeda may have been responsible for the car bomb and the missiles fired at the airliner, speculating that the suspects could have smuggled the missiles into Kenya from Somalia.^{[citation needed]} Twelve people were questioned in connection with the Paradise Hotel bombing: six Pakistanis, four Somalis (most already in custody for border violations), an American, and the American's Spanish backpacking companion.

In Lebanon, a previously unknown group called the Army of Palestine has said it carried out the attacks but Kenyan and Israeli officials speculated that Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network might have been responsible.^{[citation needed]}

The US Government condemned the attacks, but said it was too early to blame al-Qaeda. If confirmed as the work of al-Qaeda, it would be their first direct attack on Israelis - despite Bin Laden's hostility towards Israel.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Named suspects

On June 22, 2006, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, told the Somaliland Times that the US was asking for the assistance of the Islamic Courts Union in apprehending suspects in attacks on East African embassies in 1998 and the Paradise Hotel in Kenya in 2002.^[1] She listed the following individuals by name and nationality:

On December 20, 2006, Salad Ali Jelle, Defence Minister of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, claimed that one of Washington's suspects, Abu Taha al-Sudan, was an Islamic Courts Union leader fighting against the Transitional Federal Government in the 2006 Battle of Baidoa.^[2]

[edit] Reactions

United States - Secretary of State Colin Powell said November 28 "We condemn in the strongest terms the horrific terrorist bombing earlier today in the Paradise Hotel near Mombasa Kenya that killed at least eleven and wounded dozens -- both Kenyans and Israelis. We also condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist shooting at a polling station in Beit Shean in which three Israelis were killed and many more injured."

Since the failed airliner attacks efforts to counter proliferation of shoulder-fired missile (MANPADS) through the elimination of excess or illicit stocks became a priority of the U.S. Government—a priority that has been reinforced by the 2003 FBI sting operation in Newark and attacks on aircraft in Iraq.^[3]

United Kingdom - UK Home Secretary Jack Straw expressed his "utter condemnation" of a suicide bomb attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya.

Mr Straw said the government is urgently reviewing its advice to travellers destined for Kenya in the light of Thursday's attack on the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa but he said he had seen no evidence it was linked to al-Qaeda terrorists.

Mr Straw promised to make a public announcement if there was an indication that they were responsible.