Israeli soldiers wait for their flight at Mombasa International airport after evacuating Israeli tourists

KIKAMBALA, Kenya, November 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Kenyan police were holding 12 people from five nations Saturday, November 30, as international efforts to track down those responsible for the anti-Israeli attacks in Kenya got into full swing.

Six Pakistanis and three Somalis were among the 12 people detained over the attacks near Mombasa that left 16 people dead, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted police as saying.

Kenyan police spokesman King'ori Mwangi said the other three in custody were an American woman, a Spanish man and a Kenyan.

However a U.S. State Department official said the American and Spaniard were an "innocent" couple and would be released soon.

The arrests came as Kenyan investigators, joined by Israeli and U.S. colleagues, pursued leads into the attacks amid growing suspicion they were carried out by part of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

Al-Qaeda is blamed for a bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998 that killed 213 people and injured some 5,000, as well as last year's September 11 attacks on the United States.

A U.S. official said that a Somali Islamic group known as Al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI), with links to al-Qaeda and a suspected presence in Kenya, could be responsible for the attacks.

"They are another group we are looking at in relation to this," the official said.

AIAI, or the Islamic Union, is allegedly believed to have been behind a series of bomb attacks in Addis Ababa in 1996 and 1997 as well as the kidnapping of relief workers in 1998, according to the State Department's latest "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report.

Members of the 2,000-strong group are believed to have received training in Afghanistan and received weapons deliveries from Sudan, the report says.

Despite the uncertainty over who was responsible for the Mombasa attacks, Washington has been particularly sensitive about the threat bin Laden and al-Qaeda pose to its interests in Kenya and East Africa since the bombings of its embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam four years ago.

In the latest attacks, a hotel in the Indian Ocean resort was devastated Thursday, November 28, morning when a bomb-packed vehicle rammed into its reception area.

Minutes later, two missiles were fired at a charter plane of Israel's Arkia airlines with 261 passengers aboard as it took off from the airport. Both narrowly missed.

Kenyan police spokesman Mwangi said nine of those detained were picked up from two boats intercepted at sea apparently trying to leave Mombasa.

In Beirut, a previously unknown group calling itself the "Army of Palestine" claimed responsibility, but Lebanese officials dismissed it as a "fictional organization."

More than 200 Israeli tourists were evacuated Friday, November 29, along with the bodies of three victims.

Kenyan police commissioner Philemon Abong'o said witnesses reported that the people who fired on the plane had fled in a "white Pajero", a Japanese-made all-terrain vehicle.

Police earlier recovered a missile launcher and the casings of exploded missiles.

A military specialist said, after studying television footage, the launcher was a Russian-built Strela model, the equivalent of the U.S.-made Stinger system.

Kenyan police commissioner Abong'o said investigators found the license plates of the explosives-laden vehicle that hit the hotel at Kikambala.

They were traced to a Kenyan company, which may have been the previous owner.

It was still not clear if any of the three people seen in the vehicle before it blew up had actually managed to escape at the last minute, he added.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday condemned the bombing.

Annan's deputy spokesman, Hua Jiang, said Annan was appalled by the actions and relieved that a greater catastrophe had been avoided.

The United States also said Friday it had stepped up security at its embassy in Nairobi and would formalize a security warning given to U.S. citizens in Kenya.

"Americans traveling around Kenya should exercise extra caution at hotels and tourist locations on the coast and in urban areas," said a notice to U.S. citizens.

Britain on Friday issued a specific warning of a potential threat against Western interests in Nairobi, but said neither London, the United States or Australia had any information which could have prevented the double anti-Israeli attacks in Kenya.

Australia, whose citizens were targeted in the Bali bombing last month, warned two weeks ago of an increased terrorist threat in Mombasa and Nairobi, and told its citizens to avoid non-essential travel.

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