UPDATEDSuicide bombers blew up a hotel in Kenya Thursday, killing 15 people, minutes after missiles narrowly missed an Israeli airliner taking off nearby, in apparently synchronized attacks on Israeli tourists. Israeli and Kenyan officials swiftly blamed the al Qaeda network but Washington said it was premature to point the finger at the group it holds responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

In a fax sent to Reuters by a Lebanese media organization, the previously unheard-of "Army of Palestine" claimed responsibility for the Kenya attacks. Police said they were questioning two people seized near the scene of the hotel bomb.

Kenyan police said three Israeli hotel guests and nine Kenyans were believed to have died in the blast when attackers rammed a four-wheeled-drive jeep carrying explosives into the lobby of the Mombasa Paradise resort hotel.

Israeli officials said two of the three Israelis killed were children.

Kenyan police commissioner Philemon Abong'o said three suicide bombers also died and Kenya's ambassador to Israel said 80 people were wounded.

Minutes before the hotel blast, missiles were fired at an Israeli Arkia airliner carrying 261 passengers as it took off from Mombasa's airport. They missed and the plane later landed safely in Israel escorted by Israel air force jets.

The attacks revived memories of the bloody 1998 truck bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed 224 people, blamed by Washington on al Qaeda. The action also underscored what some analysts believe to be a growing breeding ground for international guerrillas in East Africa, created by unrest, poverty and lax security.

Witnesses described the scene of carnage at the hotel, where the bodies of welcoming dancers lay buried in the rubble of the lobby while rescuers tried to save the lives of two children beneath shattered palm trees outside.

"There was blood all around. There was fire all around; children looking for their parents, parents looking for their children," said Yahud Saroni, Israeli owner of the hotel.

"The bodies were burned beyond recognition," said Farie Abdul Kadir, director of disaster relief for the Kenya Red Cross.
Wreckage of the bombers' car was left 15 yards from the smoldering rubble of the entrance to the hotel.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israelis officials (L) talk to Kenyan officials next to the body of one of the victims of a bomb blast at the Paradise Hotel near Mombasa, Kenya on November 28, 2002. A suicide bomb attack on the hotel in Mombasa more than a dozen people including three Israelis, Kenya's police commissioner said. (Antony Njuguna/Reuters)