Terror tactics ... how plan was carried out
By NEIL SYSON
TWO missiles came within THREE FEET of killing 271 people aboard an airliner in a suspected al-Qa’ida terror outrage yesterday.
The SAM-7 weapons streaked past the left wing of a Boeing 757 taking 261 Israelis home from a beach holiday in Kenya.
The plane — flying at 500ft soon after take-off — shook as at least one rocket exploded.
Horrified Ezra Gozlan, 62, who was at the back of Flight IZ582 said: “We heard the explosion.
The missile went about three feet above the wing. The moment I heard the explosion I looked out of the window and saw the smoke. It was a bazooka or something like that.
“I said to someone, ‘It’s a missile’. He said, ‘No, maybe something got caught in the engine’.”
Other passengers spotted a 300-yard trail of smoke to the left of the aircraft.
The charter flight, operated by Israeli-owned Arkia airline and carrying a crew of ten, had just taken off from the coastal resort of Mombasa when it was almost downed.
The shoulder-launched Russian missiles were fired from a white, four-wheel drive about a mile from Mombasa airport.
Three or four Arab-looking men were seen fleeing in the vehicle.
Kenyan police spokesman Kingori Muanga said two missile launchers were found beside the road.
The jet passengers had been staying just north of the town at the Paradise Hotel.
It was there at least 15 people died in a suicide bombing only five minutes after the bid to destroy the aircraft.
New guests at the hotel had arrived in Mombasa on the same plane. The complexity of the double atrocity suggested it was masterminded by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida terror network.
The Boeing 757 was not damaged by the missiles. But pilot Rafi Marek thought at first it had suffered a low-altitude bird strike.
Then he noticed two white vapour trails and considered turning back for an emergency landing.
He decided to continue flying to Tel Aviv, mentioning only a “technical problem” to passengers.
Eventually, when the plane entered Israeli air space — more than four hours later — he revealed it had been attacked. Asked later how close the missiles came, the pilot replied grimly: “Not very far.”
Two Israeli warplanes escorted the jet for the final part of its journey.
Many passengers wept as they arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
Washington warned in May surface-to-air missiles could be used by terrorists to shoot down airliners.
Defence expert Chris Dobson said last night: “It would be easy for al-Qa’ida or their representatives to pick up an old Soviet-made missile in Asia and smuggle it to east Africa in a boat.”
Hundreds of SAM-7s were left behind in Afghanistan — home of al-Qa’ida — when Russian forces retreated after a ten-year war in 1989.
Lethal ... surface-to-air missile
The missile — known as the Grail — has a range of three miles and can knock down a plane flying at 13,500ft.
Al-Qa’ida fanatics inflicted carnage in Kenya in 1998.
They destroyed the US embassy in capital Nairobi with a truck bombing.
A similar attack on America’s mission in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, took place almost simultaneously. More than 230 people, including 12 Americans, died in the blasts and 5,000 were hurt.
-- Anonymous, November 29, 2002