World News 29-11-2002 Carnage In Paradise `Caused By Al-Qa`eda` who: Three suicide bombers what: Kill 15 by destroying paradise hotel where: Mombasa, Kenya when: Yesterday morning snippet: "Synchronised terrorist assaults on Israeli civilians in Kenya yesterday left 15 dead," reoprts this morning`s Times, "thrusting Israel into the heart of the US-led War on Terror and challenging the global coalition against al-Qaeda." As investigators searched through the rubble of the Paradise Hotel north of Mombasa, where 15 people were killed and 80 were injured by three suicide bombers, Israel vowed to hunt down and punish those responsible. Five minutes before the hotel blast, missiles were fired at a Boeing 757 charter aircraft carrying 261 passengers and 10 crew members after it left the ground at the city`s airport bound for Tel Aviv. They missed by feet, notes The Telegraph, which quotes passenger Ezra Gozlan, who was sitting at the back: "All the wheels were in the air when we heard the explosion," he said. "The missile went about a yard above the wing." The Mirror claims that Western intelligence experts suspected an attack on Kenya as long as 14 days ago. Australia, in particular, "told its nationals not to visit Mombasa in particular and to avoid hotels, restaurants, clubs and bars across the East African country." Roland Jacquard, head of the Paris-based International Observatory on Terrorism, said: "There is a very important al-Qaeda network implanted in the Horn of Africa. There had been information in Western anti-terrorist circles for three weeks that the Yemini head of East Africa and the Horn of Africa was looking to pull off an attack." Israel`s defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, warned that "today we have seen that the murderous terrorism has no moral or geographic boundaries. Shooting at planes represents an escalation, and orders have been given to check the steps necessary to combat this threat, which the whole world must view as an additional channel of terrorism." [... more]

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