Grief and anger after Kenya pays the price of terror again

Israel flew its dead and wounded home from Mombasa yesterday in a slick militaristic operation. Yet in the muggy, crumbling port city they left behind, grieving Kenyans were angry that yet again they have paid the highest price for international terrorism.

"Why don't they take the war to their own country?" said Soud Mohamed, a 61-year-old taxi driver. "This is the second time we have suffered."

Of the 219 people killed in the 1998 lorry-bomb attack on the American embassy in Nairobi, more than 200 of the dead were Kenyans. In the Paradise Hotel suicide attack, locals also accounted for the majority of the dead.

In a humid hospital ward flooded with sunlight yesterday afternoon, injured hotel staff were being comforted by relatives. The receptionist Jane Mwaura, 29, had left her rural home for a stake in the country's tourist industry. Yesterday she lay deathly still under a cage that covered severe burns to her arms, legs and midriff. A cotton patch hid the stitches to her head. She said: "We were just receiving visitors, handling the kids. Then suddenly we just saw darkness, and there was a lot of pain."

Phlester Kalama, 18, another receptionist, was two beds up. She had been brought to the hospital in a public bus. Her angry father stood over her bed. "We don't have any quarrel with the Israelis or the Arabs or the Americans. But because we are a poor country, and security is not good, they come here to target people like my daughter. And she is innocent."

Vincent Tuku, the head gardener, saw the bombers' Pajero all-terrain vehicle crash through the hotel gates. "There were three Arabs inside, two in the front and one lying in the back," he said. He had minor injuries, but his friend Ibrahim Mwangiri, who had been standing beside him, died instantly.

Staff had been worried about working for an exclusively Israeli clientele, he said. "There were stories that maybe the Arabs would come to get them. We told the director they should be spread around other hotels."

Less fortunate hotel staff were to be found in the morgue next door, wrapped in tight blue cotton shrouds tied with safety pins. Six traditional dancers from the Giriama tribe, who had been standing in front of the lobby, bore the brunt of the blast. Yesterday their relatives filed silently into the dirty, humid rooms to identify their remains.

The attendant Ali Mohamed, his dirty green gown covered with swabs of white cotton used to treat the corpses, said: "Even the Israelis, they are innocent people. It is not good."

Like Mr Mohamed, many of the coast's Muslims said they abhor such violence. After 11 September, local imams expressed their sympathy for the United States. Nevertheless, Osama bin Laden has become a cult hero for the many unemployed men in the economically deprived coastal regions. Wall pictures and T-shirts bearing Bin Laden's face, and graffiti such as "Bin Laden victor!" have started to appear.

Yesterday Abubakar Awadh, an official of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, said: "If this was done to Israelis alone, it would be a worthy cause."

Many believe such manifestations do not necessarily show these men agree with Bin Laden's violent tactics, but they do point to a shared hostility towards Israel and the US.

"Most people here can somehow agree with Bin Laden," said Soud Mohamed. "They think Bush wants the war to continue, and for Israel to drive the Palestinians out and create a new Israeli state.

"They even have a plan to demolish the mosque in Jerusalem and build a temple in its place. Can you imagine what that is going to cause?"

Although the coast attracts tourists ranging from down-at-heel backpackers to the Hollywood jet set, most pay only a fleeting visit to Mombasa, a heaving port that has slowly crumbled in the way of many Kenyan towns in recent years. The main thoroughfare, Moi Avenue, is lined with shabby shopfronts, while the old city has charm but is lacking modern tourist facilities. The road leading to Nairobi, ruined by years of poor maintenance and abuse from thundering lorries heading for the African interior, is like an assault course, with crater-like potholes.

Nevertheless its strong Muslim fabric and traditional links with the Arab world have provided a cultural and religious cloak that make it easy for Islamic terrorists to blend in. The fanatics behind the 1998 embassy bombing hired a house in a quiet Mombasa neighbourhood, where they prepared the devastating lorry bomb before driving it up to Nairobi.