Almost two months ago, terrorists blew up a hotel and tried to down an Israeli jet in Kenya. Declan Walsh reports on the hunt for those responsible.
KENYA: Kenyans account for three of the six "prime suspects" wanted for last November's terrorist attacks in Mombasa, raising fears of increased Islamic radicalism on Kenya's famously tolerant coast.
Kenyan and Israeli investigators say Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a 23-year-old Mombasa native, played a key role in the Paradise Hotel suicide bombing that killed 12 Kenyan hotel workers, three Israeli tourists and three terrorists.
Police have established that Mr Nabhan bought the green Mitsubishi jeep used in the attack and is believed to have helped assemble the bomb at his Mombasa house.
The Mombasa native was last seen four days after the November 28th attack on the tourist idyll of Lamu Island, near the Kenya-Somali border. His 17-year-old wife Fatuma, who has been questioned and released without charge, says she believes he subsequently slipped into war-ravaged Somalia.
Police are offering a €6,500 bounty for the capture of Mr Nabhan and an unnamed Kenyan couple who lived with him in the weeks before the attacks.
They have also distributed computer-generated sketches of two men suspected of attempting to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet in an almost simultaneous attack.
The heat-seeking Russian missiles, fired by shoulder from near Mombasa's international airport, missed their target.
Several western countries have issued travel warnings in the wake of the attacks. Two weeks ago, the US warned of a possible terrorist attack on "an unspecified location frequented by westerners" on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania.
The US has stationed a warship, the USS Mount Whitney, in the small port nation of Djibouti as part of its "war on terror".
In a press briefing in Nairobi on Wednesday, force commander Maj Gen John Sattler said he was seeking co-operation from five countries - Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen and Djibouti - to hunt down terrorist cells. His men would stop the terrorists through either legal means or "violent military action", he said.
Mossad and FBI agents are assisting with the Kenyan investigation, which was initially marred by a series of blunders.
An American tourist and her Spanish husband were arrested shortly after the bombing but later released.
Nine Somali and Pakistani fishermen were also arrested but were cleared of terrorist involvement. They were prosecuted for entering the country illegally.
According to a diplomatic source, one of the rockets fired at the Israeli passenger jet, which was carrying 271 people, has been sent to the US for analysis while the other was sent to Israel. The results have yet to be made public.
Most of Kenya's Muslims, estimated to number between five and 15 per cent of the 30 million population, live near the Indian Ocean coastline, which is also one of the country's prime tourist attractions.
Although the coast is famous for its culture of tolerance, and not fundamentalism, some Islamic clerics have been increasingly outspoken against the US and Israel in recent years.
"There is an undeclared war between their countries and the Muslim world," Sheikh Ali Shee, chairman of the Council of Imams, told the Irish Times in the wake of the November attacks.
BRITAIN: Police yesterday filed terrorist charges against a man in connection with the raid on north London's radical Finsbury Park mosque, a Scotland Yard spokesman said. Mr Samir Asli (29) was charged with the "possession of articles for terrorist purposes".
The suspect, reportedly of north African origin, is due to appear at London's Bow Street magistrates court today.
Mr Asli was among seven people - six north Africans and one eastern European - arrested by police when they raided the Finsbury Park mosque in the early hours of January 20th.
Police had earlier discovered traces of the deadly toxin ricin in a nearby flat. - (PA)