Mombasa, Kenya, Nov 30: Kenya said today it had so far found no link between 12 people held over attacks on Israelis in Mombasa and the al Qaeda network that US officials have said could have had a hand in them.

The officials said on Friday the top suspect for the blast on Thursday at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in which 12 people were killed was the Somali-based group al-Itihad al-Islamiya, known also as AIAI or the Islamic Union.

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They said it was a prominent radical Islamist group in the horn of Africa and had links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, target of US President George W. Bush's war on terror after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year.

But Kenyan internal security minister Julius Sunkuli, asked if police had found any connection between al Qaeda and those being held over the explosion and a failed simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner, said: ''None so far.''

Sunkuli told a news conference that of the 12 detainees, all foreigners, a US and a Spanish national ''appear to have the least connection'' to the attacks and were likely to be freed.



''At the point at which investigations are now, I do not actually think that they were involved,'' he said of the two. ''When the connection is totally ruled out the police will just release them.''



The American and Spaniard were held after trying to check out of another hotel in the area about two hours after the blast.



The other detainees are six Pakistanis and four Somalis. They were arrested for entering Kenya illegally and only later came under suspicion by investigators probing the attacks, police said.


Bureau Report