Israeli PM vows to find killers

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon used his victory speech yesterday after a crucial Likud Party leadership election to vow Israel would hunt down those behind a suicide bombing that killed three Israelis at a hotel in Kenya.

"Our long arm will catch the attackers and those who dispatch them," Sharon said in a solemn voice. He has ordered the intelligence agency Mossad to investigate the attacks and he echoed the pledge Israel made after the killing of 11 of its athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Israel eventually carried out its threat, using Mossad to track and kill those it held responsible for the Munich attack.

Asking supporters to forgo celebrations after his landslide win over hawkish rival Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon made it clear Israel would strike back hard for the bombing and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner taking off nearby.

"Israel will hunt down those who spilled the blood of its citizens. No one will emerge unscathed," the right-wing Prime Minister and former general said.

While Sharon and his ministers said publicly that they did not know who was behind the attacks, unnamed officials were busy briefing that the attacks showed every sign of being the work of al Qaeda. Washington said it was too early to point the finger at the group it has blamed for last year's September 11.

In Mombasa, Kenyan police backed by Israeli security experts were yesterday hunting for men of Arab appearance who fired the missiles.

Police were also questioning two men who were detained as they tried to check out of a Mombasa hotel.

Police said three suicide bombers died when they drove a four-wheel-drive jeep carrying explosives at speed into the lobby of the Mombasa Paradise hotel.

Three Israeli hotel guests and at least nine Kenyans died in the blast. Two of the three Israelis killed were children.

Provincial medical officer Shahnaz Sharif said there were possibly 16 dead, including the three bombers.

Minutes before the hotel explosion, 261 passengers narrowly escaped death when two missiles were fired at their Israeli Arkia Boeing 757-300 as it took off from Mombasa's airport.

The missiles missed their target and the plane later landed safely in Israel.

Later, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a local branch of the Likud Party and a nearby outdoor bus terminal in the northern Israeli town of Beit Shean, killing five Israelis before being shot dead in a firefight.

The attack was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

Television exit polls projected Sharon's sweeping triumph as soon as the Likud polls closed for the party's 305,000 members. With about half of the vote counted, Sharon had 58.6 per cent of the vote to Netanyahu's 38 per cent.

Despite his margin of victory, Sharon called for a low-key response. "I ask all of you to behave quietly. We have still not buried today's victims of terror," he told his supporters.

In Beirut, Lebanon, a previously unknown group calling itself "Government of Universal Palestine in Exile, The Army of Palestine" claimed responsibility for the attacks.

However, Israeli and Kenyan officials said al Qaeda's past activities in east Africa and the manner of the attacks pointed to the group which carried out almost simultaneous bombings to the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

- AGENCIES

Herald feature: The Middle East