Mon December 2, 2002 03:23 PM ET
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MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - The United States offered Monday to help hunt down those behind the attacks on Israelis in Kenya, while a statement purporting to be from al Qaeda claimed it carried out the assaults on a hotel and airliner.
"The fighters of al Qaeda return to the same place where the Crusader-Jewish coalition was hit four years ago," said the statement posted on the Internet, referring to the bloody 1998 bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
The authenticity of the statement, signed by the "Political Office of Qaeda al-Jihad" and posted on an Islamist Web site could not be immediately confirmed.
Earlier Monday, President Bush offered his condolences to the Kenyan people in a telephone call to President Daniel arap Moi and offered U.S. assistance in the probe of Thursday's attacks.
A suicide bombing killed the three bombers, three Israelis and 10 Kenyans at an Israeli-owned hotel in the coastal resort of Mombasa, Thursday. An almost simultaneous missile attack narrowly missed an Israeli airliner taking off nearby.
"He (Bush) offered United States assistance in their investigation," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"The leaders shared their commitment to bring to justice those responsible for the attack. The president expressed his appreciation for the cooperation of President Moi and the Kenyan government in the global fight against terrorism," he said.
U.S. officials suspect Thursday's attacks were the work of the Somali-based group al-Itihad al-Islamiya, which they say has links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Israel, which has ordered its Mossad spy agency to hunt down attackers and sent investigators to Kenya, has named al Qaeda the prime suspect in the attacks.
Al Qaeda has been the target of Washington's "war on terrorism" since last year's September 11 attacks on the United States which killed about 3,000 people.
Kenyan police have held six Pakistanis and four Somalis for questioning since Thursday's attacks but say they have found no links to al Qaeda or to al-Itihad.
SECURITY TALKS
Israel said Monday that Kenya lacked the facilities and expertise to probe the attacks, but Moi insisted his government was up to the task. Police in the east African country said they had disagreed with Israel over control of key evidence.
"I would like to assure you that our security and intelligence departments are vigorously pursuing the perpetrators of this crime," Moi said before leaving for the United States late Monday.
Moi was due to make a brief stopover in London before proceeding to Washington where he and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi are to meet Bush Thursday.
The three leaders are expected to discuss security in the Horn of Africa which was thrust into the spotlight of Washington's war on terror after the Mombasa attacks.
The two Africans are expected to tell Bush that the West can prevent future horrors like the Mombasa bombing only if it backs cash-strapped countries in the region with the clout to crush the fanatics behind it, analysts said.
Experts have called Africa a blind spot in Bush's declared war on terrorism, a region where unrest, poverty and lax security have created breeding grounds for the international guerrillas of radical Islam.
Washington says it has received information that similar attacks may be launched in Ethiopia, Eritrea or tiny Djibouti, which borders Somalia. U.S. forces are due to start long-scheduled exercises off the Kenyan coast Wednesday.
Moi said it was hard for Kenyans to come to terms with the horrors of the assault, "especially one that has taken place in our own land due to enmity between peoples far from our shores."
Among the victims of the blast were members of a dance troupe who were entertaining tourists at the hotel.
"The elderly mother of one of the young dancers who had lost her life told me that she did not even know where Israel was. Terrorism -- for whatever cause -- is indiscriminate in its effect and knows no boundaries," Moi said.
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