By Manoah Esipisu and Fiona O'Brien
MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenya said on Sunday it was at risk of attack as long as the Middle East was in crisis and the United States told its citizens in east Africa they too could be targets after the attacks on Israelis in Mombasa.
Kenyan police said they had found two fragments of the bomb which killed 16 people at an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa last week. Witnesses said the fragments were taken away by Israeli bomb experts.
The most influential politician in Kenya's Indian Ocean region, Shariff Nassir, expressed concern that political violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had spilled over into Kenya.
"What is going on now is that Palestinians can't fight against Israelis in Israel. They have to fight outside. Wherever they go, they have found out that in Kenya, it is the easiest way to come in," the government minister told Reuters.
"For as long as they do not resolve the question, the attacks won't stop. People who strap themselves with bombs and are ready to sacrifice their lives are dangerous. They are prepared to go to dangerous heights," he added.
U.S. officials have said the top suspect for the blast is the Somali-based group Al-Itihad al-Islamiya, which they said had links with al Qaeda, target of U.S. President George W. Bush's war on terror after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year.
Kenyan police say they have so far found no link between 12 people held over the attacks on the hotel, and the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.
"We have no knowledge on any links yet (to Al-Itihad)," William Langat, the Kenyan police officer heading the investigation into the attacks, said on Sunday.
The interim government in lawless Somalia has called for the dismantling of "terror groups" throughout east Africa, but has downplayed the likelihood of any link between Al-Itihad and the attacks in Kenya.
Al Qaeda is widely accused of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which 224 people died, most of them Africans.
U.S. WARNING
Washington on Saturday warned of possible heightened risks to Americans in Kenya, and said it had received information that similar attacks might also occur in the tiny nation of Djibouti, which borders Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
"Due to the preponderance of threat information, the department believes it prudent to share this information with American citizens so they can make an informed decision in deciding whether to travel to or remain in east Africa," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
The Pentagon is establishing a command centre in Djibouti as it increases the number of U.S. troops in the Horn of Africa to 1,200 from 800 to hunt down militant groups.
Many are Marines or elite Special Operations troops and are stationed in Djibouti or on ships in the Red Sea.
Police have detained six Pakistanis and four Somalis who were arrested for entering Kenya illegally and only later came under suspicion by those investigating the attacks.
Two other detainees, American Alicia Kalhammer and her Spanish husband Jose Tena, were released on Saturday after questioning, saying they had no connection with the attacks.
Kenyan police said on Sunday that two pieces of metal were found in the charred remains of the hotel. One of the pieces had four numbers on it which could be used to identify the cylinder, they said.
"These are parts of a welded gas cylinder. Of course, it is part of the bomb," Kenyan investigator Charles Juma told reporters at the site of the bombing.
Three suicide bombers rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel on Thursday and blew it up, killing themselves and 13 other people, three of them Israelis. Minutes earlier missiles nearly hit an Israeli airliner carrying 261 people taking off nearby.
SOMALIA CONDEMNS ATTACKS
An official of Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG) said on Saturday that Prime Minister Hassan Abshir Farah condemned the attacks "in the strongest terms".
"The government feels it is time to work together as a region and international community to dismantle terror groups wherever they are," the official quoted Farah as saying.
The TNG denies charges by some of its Somali warlord opponents and by the government of neighbouring Ethiopia that it harbours Al-Itihad members suspected of involvement in violence.
The previously unheard of "Army of Palestine" has claimed responsibility for Thursday's attacks in a faxed statement via a Lebanese media organisation. There has been no confirmation.
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