Attempts Made By A Surface To Air Missile To Shoot
Down An Israeli Airliner After Bombing A Hotel  

November 29, 2002, MOMBASA,  Kenya JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Kenyan police on Friday were holding a third person in the attack on Israeli targets in East Africa that killed 15 people as Israel evacuated wounded tourists from Mombasa. Police were looking for men of Arab appearance who fired missiles at a plane of Israeli tourists in the coastal resort of Mombasa on Thursday, minutes before a speeding jeep exploded in the lobby of a nearby Israeli-owned hotel killing 15 people. By Friday, three people had been detained. "There was another person, a third person, held for questioning last night," police spokesman Kimgori Mwangi told Reuters.

"They are all foreigners." Authorities have not revealed the nationalities of the two men and one woman being held. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed a swift response. "Our long arm will catch the attackers and those who dispatch them," Sharon told the nation later on Thursday after his Likud party re-elected him as its leader ahead of Israel's January 28 general election. Israeli and Kenyan officials have been quick to blame Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network for the attack on the Mombasa Paradise Hotel. The blast killed three Israelis, nine Kenyans and the three bombers

Minutes before the suicide bombers struck at the Paradise Hotel, missiles nearly hit an Israeli airliner taking off nearby. Hours later the Arkia Boeing 757-300 with 261 people on board landed safely in Tel Aviv escorted by Israeli military jets. Police and security sources said the missiles were fired from a white Pajero jeep, possibly from shoulder-held launchers, by attackers suspected of being of Arab origin.