The United States offered on Monday to help hunt down those behind the attacks on Israelis in Kenya, while a statement purporting to be from al Qaeda claimed it carried out the assaults on a hotel and airliner: "The fighters of al Qaeda return to the same place where the Crusader-Jewish coalition was hit four years ago," said the statement posted on the Internet, referring to the bloody 1998 bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

In Washington, a U.S. official said the statement, signed by the "Political Office of Qaeda al-Jihad" and posted on an Islamist Web site, was being viewed as credible. He added that there was increasing reason to believe that al Qaeda was involved.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the serial number on the missile fired at an Israeli airliner last week was close in sequence to a missile fired at a U.S. military aircraft in Saudi Arabia, suggesting they came from the same batch. The attack on the U.S. aircraft last may was linked to al Qaeda, the official said.

Earlier, President Bush offered his condolences to the Kenyan people in a telephone call to President Daniel arap Moi and offered U.S. assistance in the probe of last Thursday's attacks.

A suicide bombing killed the three bombers, three Israelis and 10 Kenyans at an Israeli-owned hotel in the coastal resort of Mombasa. An almost simultaneous missile attack narrowly missed an Israeli airliner taking off nearby.

US SUSPECTS SOMALI-BASED, QAEDA AFFILIATED, ITIHAD AL-ISLAMIYA CARRIED OUT THE ATTACKS

U.S. officials suspect Thursday's attacks were the work of the Somali-based group al-Itihad al-Islamiya, which they say has links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Israel, which has ordered its Mossad spy agency to hunt down attackers and sent investigators to Kenya, has named al Qaeda the prime suspect in the attacks.

Al Qaeda has been the target of Washington's "war on terrorism" since last year's Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,000 people.

Kenyan police have held six Pakistanis and four Somalis for questioning since Thursday's attacks but say they have found no links to al Qaeda or to al-Itihad.

Israel said Monday that Kenya lacked the facilities and expertise to probe the attacks, but Moi insisted his government was up to the task. Police in the east African country said they had disagreed with Israel over control of key evidence.

MOI TO WASHINGTON

Moi was due to make a brief stopover in London before proceeding to Washington, where he and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi were to meet Bush Thursday.

The three leaders are expected to discuss security in the Horn of Africa, which was thrust into the spotlight of Washington's war on terror after the Mombasa attacks.

The two Africans are expected to tell Bush that the West can prevent future horrors like the Mombasa bombing only if it backs cash-strapped countries in the region with the clout to crush the fanatics behind it, analysts said.

Experts have called Africa a blind spot in Bush's declared war on terrorism, a region where unrest, poverty and lax security have created breeding grounds for the international guerrillas of radical Islam.

Washington says it has received information that similar attacks may be launched in Ethiopia, Eritrea or tiny Djibouti, which borders Somalia. U.S. forces are due to start long-scheduled exercises off the Kenyan coast Wednesday.

Moi said it was hard for Kenyans to come to terms with the horrors of the assault, "especially one that has taken place in our own land due to enmity between peoples far from our shores."

PHOTO CAPTION

An aerial view shows the destroyed Israeli-owned Paradise hotel complex north of the Kenyan city of Mombasa December 2, 2002. The United States offered to help hunt down those behind the attacks on Israelis in Kenya, while a statement purporting to be from al Qaeda claimed it carried out the assaults on the hotel and an airliner. (Wolfgang Rattay/Reuter