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Kenya 'close to' al Qaeda arrests
By Bureau Chief Catherine Bond
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Kenya's top security chief said Sunday that Kenya was closing in on suspected al Qaeda operatives in the country. He also said that Kenya had put an anti-terrorism strategy into place, following last week's renewed warnings by Britain and the United States that Western interests in Kenya risked being targeted by terrorists. Chris Murangaru, internal affairs minister in Kenya's president's office, told a Nairobi press conference Kenya had reevaluated measures to protect its main international airport and major hotels in the capital of Nairobi, as well as Western embassies and businesses. Murangaru's statement follows U.S. and British warnings to their citizens to be vigilant in case of another terrorist attack in the East African nation. The heightened tension in Kenya and elsewhere in the world was due to the situation developing in the Middle East, he said. Kenya has been the scene of two terrorist attacks on Western interests for which Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network claimed responsibility. In 1998 the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi was bombed and last November an Israeli-owned hotel was attacked near the city of Mombasa on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast. Murangaru said Kenya had "made significant progress in our investigations of the Mombasa attack" and would be soon be able to "apprehend those responsible" as well as forestall further terrorist threats. Sixteen people, including two suicide bombers, died in the Mombasa attack, while an almost simultaneous attempt to down an Israeli civil airliner carrying more than 240 people from Mombasa airport, failed. In 1998, more than 200 Kenyans were killed in the embassy bombing -- making it the most deadly of al Qaeda's attacks on Western interests prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Murungaru conceded that al Qaeda could still be considered operational in Kenya, as elsewhere. "Al Qaeda is everywhere," he said. "Al Qaeda is in mosques, al Qaeda is in offices, al Queda is in every part of the world. They are in the West, they are in East, they are all over. So I would not say that al Qaeda is not with us, they are with us." Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, in response to a question, "I don't think America would claim that they've cleaned up...[all] those that planned and executed that massive operation."
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