Al-Qa'ida admits to attacks on Israeli tourists in Kenya

An al-Qa'ida spokesman said yesterday that Osama bin Laden's organisation attacked Israeli tourists in Mombasa last month and warned of more violence to come.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith said in a taped message broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television station that al-Qa'ida had blown up an Israeli-owned hotel on 28 November with a car bomb, killing three Israeli visitors and 10 Kenyan workers, and had fired missiles that narrowly missed an Israeli airliner.

A radical Islamic website, which had previously claimed that al-Qa'ida was responsible, yesterday reported Mr Abu Ghaith as boasting that Israelis and Americans would not be safe anywhere.

"We will chase the enemy with terrifying weapons," the statement said. "We have to widen our fighting fronts so that they feel unsafe and unstable on land, air and sea."

Mr Abu Ghaith added that Washington's preparations for a possible attack against Iraq aimed at killing Muslims, partitioning the country and plundering its oil wealth.

Earlier yesterday, Israeli security sources revealed that they had received warnings of a planned al-Qa'ida attack on Israeli and Jewish tourists visiting Prague. After the 11 September atrocities in the United States, the Czechs stepped up security around their capital's historic synagogues and Jewish cemetery, which attract as many as 250,000 Israelis a year.