Yonatan Zunger (zunger) wrote,
Yonatan Zunger
zunger

Follow-up to yesterday...

Well, it looks like the attack threatened yesterday happened - but mercifully didn't go off as planned. Details here. The big one wasn't the car bomb at the hotel, but notice a couple of other things:


  • Two Stinger missiles (shoulder-mounted heat-seekers) were fired at a B757 as it was taking off from Mombasa airport. This would have been the first successful destruction of a passenger aircraft, not from aboard the craft but from the ground.
  • There are also rumors (debka, so take with some grain of salt) that aircraft strafed the hotel building in Kenya which was bombed.
  • There were four major, synchronized attacks: The aircraft strike, the Kenya bombing, the attack at the polling place in Israel, and a nearby major car bomb. (Which failed to detonate) Multiple widely separated, synchronized attacks are a classic al Qaeda calling card. (cf. Sept. 11, or the embassy bombings a few years ago)


So yes, sometimes it pays to be paranoid. One interesting point of analysis from debka: "The Mombasa attacks like the Bali bombing targeted exotic tourist spots frequented by Western vacationers - focusing on Australians in the first and Israelis in the second. "
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  • 7 comments
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zunger

November 29 2002, 00:52:30 UTC 13 years ago

In terms of politics? Well, it's probably part of it. But I can't remember which specific thing I was worried about last week... (yes, it's been one of those weeks)

anthologie

November 29 2002, 10:14:31 UTC 13 years ago

*laugh* Well, at the party at kamileon and woody77's, you suddenly paused mid-conversation and said you had a bad feeling about something in the near future, and you were trying to remember the schedule of political events for the next couple of weeks.

But to hear it's been "one of those weeks," eesh.