Kenya attacks show Africa easy target for guerillas

Africa is a blind spot in the "war on terrorism" as unrest, poverty and lax security have created a breeding ground for international guerillas, experts said on Thursday after a suicide bombing killed 14 in Kenya.

East Africa in particular, a magnet for tourists because of its wildlife and fine beaches, offers an array of easy targets frequented by Western holidaymakers, a recent focus of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

"Extending all along East Africa from Somalia down to Kenya, Tanzania - even extending down to South Africa - there is an al Qaeda presence," said Magnus Ranstorp, deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism at the University of St Andrews in Britain.

"It is a blind spot in the 'war against terrorism'. Part of that has to do with the ideal environment of low-level lawlessness which makes it ideal to be able to operate below the radar screen," he said. "There are a lot of available Western and other targets and of course the Muslim population."

A previously unheard-of group calling itself the Army of Palestine claimed responsibility on Thursday for the suicide attack on a hotel in Mombasa, which was full of Israelis, and for a failed missile attack on an Israeli airliner in Kenya.

At least 14 people including three suicide bombers were killed and 80 wounded in the attack on the hotel. Two missiles were fired at the airliner, but missed their target.

It was not immediately possible to verify the claim, which supported the view of some experts that although al Qaeda was the likely culprit, a Palestinian group could be responsible for Thursday's attacks.

Nabil Abdel-Fattah, assistant director of the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said the timing seemed to be aimed at coinciding with Israel's Likud party leadership vote on Thursday.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced his more hardline rival, Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the vote.

"It is to show the Sharon option, the Likud option, is not a solution to the Palestine problem," he said.

If al Qaeda were behind the attack, however, Abdel-Fattah, said it was probably aimed at trying to mobilise support from some Arabs who have questioned why al Qaeda has attacked sites in the United States but not Israel or Israelis.

"This is to show the credibility of the political discourse of al Qaeda and secondly to mobilise the Arab people..., producing a new wave of supporters for al Qaeda network."

The attacks were the latest sign that guerillas are targeting civilians to achieve their ends, experts said.

"There has been a kind of strategic shift in al Qaeda and probably also non-aligned mujahideen (holy warriors) circles," said one top German anti-terrorism official.

"Instead of attacking only hardened targets like embassies and or military installations, you attack soft targets which have a certain economic significance," he said.

"That can be a tanker, but probably even better is a tourist facility. You can't protect them and the effect of a successful attack on a tourist facility is probably even more far-reaching than one on an embassy or let's say a warship."

The bombing was the latest against tourists this year after attacks on Djerba, Tunisia, and Bali, Indonesia, that killed many foreigners and shows al Qaeda remains dangerous more than a year after the United States declared a "war on terrorism".

Western governments are already on heightened alert after a recording believed authentic from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden earlier this month. Roland Jacquard, head of the International Observatory on Terrorism in Paris, said al Qaeda was the likely suspect in the Kenyan attacks.

"That seems plausible to me because in 1998, the US embassy in Kenya was attacked by al Qaeda in the name of the Islamic Army against the Jews and the Crusaders," he said.

The United States blamed al Qaeda for two 1998 truck bomb attacks on US embassies in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam in which 224 people were killed and thousands injured. "There is a very important al Qaeda network implanted in the Horn of Africa," Jacquard said.

"There has been information circulating in Western anti-terrorist circles for the past three weeks that the Yemeni head for East Africa and the Horn of Africa... was looking to pull off an attack," he said.

Africa may serve as a soft underbelly toward that end. In a report on terrorism earlier this year, the US State Department designated Sudan as one of seven state sponsors of terrorism, and named Somalia as "a potential breeding ground as well as safe haven for terrorist networks".

"International terrorist organisations with Islamic ties, including al Qaeda and Lebanese Hizbollah, have a presence in Africa and continue to exploit Africa's permissive operating environment - porous borders, conflict, lax financial systems, and the wide availability of weapons - to expand and strengthen their networks," it said.

"These groups are able to flourish in 'failed states' or those with weak governments that are unable to monitor the activities of terrorists and their supporters within their borders".