Tuesday December 3, 6:26 AM

An Islamist website published a message purportedly from the al-Qaeda terror network claiming responsibility for the twin attacks targeting Israelis in Kenya.

"With the grace of God ... the fighters dealt blows and carried out ... two operations in Mombasa against Jewish interests by firing two missiles at an Israeli airplane and by destroying an Israeli hotel," said the Arabic-language message posted on the www.islammemo.com website.

The text also promised other attacks against "Jews and Crusaders".

"The strikes by Islamic (fighters) will continue God willing, and may the whole world know that the Crusader war against Islam and Muslims is destined to fail and will never succeed as the Jews and Crusaders desire," it said.

The claim could not immediately be authenticated.

On November 28, three Israelis and 10 Kenyans were killed in Kikambala, near Mombasa, when three men slammed a four-wheel drive vehicle packed with explosives into the Paradise Hotel. The attackers also died.

Minutes earlier, two shoulder-fired missiles were launched at an Israeli passenger plane with 261 Israelis on board, as it took off from Mombasa airport, and narrowly missed the aircraft.

"We wanted to deliver this message: what you (Israelis) are practicing to corrupt our land and occupy our holy sites and what you are committing as terrorist acts against our families in Palestine ... will not pass without similar operations on the same scale," the purported al-Qaeda said.

The statement also claims responsibility for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam in east Africa which killed a total of 225 people, including 12 Americans.

"In the same place where the Jewish-Crusader coalition was struck, four years ago, at the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, the fighters of the al-Qaeda network come back one more time to deliver a strong blow to this cowardly coalition."

The message also claims responsibility for a series of other attacks: among them the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 that killed 11 US soldiers, the bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia in April, the attack against the French Limburg ship in October, and the killing of a US marine in Kuwait the same month.

Israel has already said Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda -- widely believed responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the target of Washington's war on terrorism -- or an offshoot were the prime suspects behind this week's Kenyan attacks.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday suspicions that al-Qaeda was responsible for the Kenya attacks were deepening, "although we do not have tangible proof of its implication."

Kenya is leading the investigation but Israeli and US experts are also involved.

Kenyan police are holding six Pakistanis and four Somalis for questioning about the bombing, but has not named them as suspects.

Kenya has also not ruled out that the al-Qaeda network is involved, but said it has nothing to link the 10 detainees to either the attacks here or the terror group.

In Washington, a US official said the missile launchers fired at the jetliner were probably from the same lot as one used in a suspected al-Qaeda attack against a US aircraft in Saudi Arabia.

The official said the discovery had further raised suspicions that al-Qaeda was behind the coordinated November 28 attacks.

Two SA-7 surface-to-air missile launchers were recovered by investigators in Kenya after the failed attempt to shoot down the charter plane.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2002