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Dan Plesh Discusses Terror Attacks in Kenya

Aired November 28, 2002 - 06:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: And now from our London bureau to talk about what happened this morning in Kenya, we have an expert on terrorism.
Dan Plesh of the Royal United Services and Institute for Defense Studies, thanks for joining us so quickly today.

Your thoughts on what has happened today in light of a lot of these people that we're talking with saying that this, they are shocked by these attacks, they felt completely safe in

Kenya.

DAN PLESH, INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE STUDIES: Well, they may have done, but clearly there was the embassy bombing a few years ago. There's both a strong presence from the Israeli community commercially in East Africa and also of the bin Laden family commercially. So you might say both interests have a strong presence in the region.

If I may take up one point, clearly we need to crack down and go after people. But there is a very real and very serious truth that there's very rarely been a military solution to terrorism, that in the end we have to have a political solution. And we have to bear in mind that for whatever reason two or three people actually even killed themselves in this appalling hotel attack. And we have to understand -- understanding is not to be confused with sympathy -- what the dynamics are here if we are to get to a safer world.

CALLAWAY: You know...

PLESH: It isn't simply a question of yet more and more crackdown.

CALLAWAY: We have certainly seen attacks in that region, but have we seen what we saw today, missiles being fired at a jetliner?

PLESH: Well, no. But you wouldn't, shouldn't expect things to be the same as they were before. We are engaged with some people who are attempting to launch what we might call the first global guerrilla war in history. And they're carrying out attacks pretty much every week in different parts of the planet.

We tend to look at them in isolation and in individual countries rather than looking at the overall pattern, which, as I say, is a process of almost constant attack, and I should say almost daily attacks on our forces in Afghanistan, as well.

CALLAWAY: Right.

All right, thank you for getting up and talking with us today.

We want to bring you up to date on the story that we're bringing to you this morning, happened overnight. Two attacks against Israel. Eleven people now confirmed, or 11 people dead and two of those were children, three confirmed to be Israelis, the rest Kenyans. These attacks both took place in Kenya about five and a half hours ago.

First, a car bomb blowing up at the Mombasa Paradise Hotel, which is Israeli-owned there. The three suicide bombers apparently among the fatalities at that hotel in Mombasa. And at about the same time, an Arkia Flight 582 was taking off at the airport in Mombasa. There were at least two missiles fired at that jetliner. It did not strike the jet. No one was injured on the plane.

You're looking now at video of it landing safely in Tel Aviv. Two hundred and sixty-one passengers on board. No one was injured. They were not even aware of the attack on their plane, the passengers, that is, until about 30 minutes before it landed. It was escorted by Israeli military aircraft as it approached landing there at the Tel Aviv airport.

We will continue to bring you developments on this story.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 28, 2002 - 06:20   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: And now from our London bureau to talk about what happened this morning in Kenya, we have an expert on terrorism.
Dan Plesh of the Royal United Services and Institute for Defense Studies, thanks for joining us so quickly today.

Your thoughts on what has happened today in light of a lot of these people that we're talking with saying that this, they are shocked by these attacks, they felt completely safe in

Kenya.

DAN PLESH, INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE STUDIES: Well, they may have done, but clearly there was the embassy bombing a few years ago. There's both a strong presence from the Israeli community commercially in East Africa and also of the bin Laden family commercially. So you might say both interests have a strong presence in the region.

If I may take up one point, clearly we need to crack down and go after people. But there is a very real and very serious truth that there's very rarely been a military solution to terrorism, that in the end we have to have a political solution. And we have to bear in mind that for whatever reason two or three people actually even killed themselves in this appalling hotel attack. And we have to understand -- understanding is not to be confused with sympathy -- what the dynamics are here if we are to get to a safer world.

CALLAWAY: You know...

PLESH: It isn't simply a question of yet more and more crackdown.

CALLAWAY: We have certainly seen attacks in that region, but have we seen what we saw today, missiles being fired at a jetliner?

PLESH: Well, no. But you wouldn't, shouldn't expect things to be the same as they were before. We are engaged with some people who are attempting to launch what we might call the first global guerrilla war in history. And they're carrying out attacks pretty much every week in different parts of the planet.

We tend to look at them in isolation and in individual countries rather than looking at the overall pattern, which, as I say, is a process of almost constant attack, and I should say almost daily attacks on our forces in Afghanistan, as well.

CALLAWAY: Right.

All right, thank you for getting up and talking with us today.

We want to bring you up to date on the story that we're bringing to you this morning, happened overnight. Two attacks against Israel. Eleven people now confirmed, or 11 people dead and two of those were children, three confirmed to be Israelis, the rest Kenyans. These attacks both took place in Kenya about five and a half hours ago.

First, a car bomb blowing up at the Mombasa Paradise Hotel, which is Israeli-owned there. The three suicide bombers apparently among the fatalities at that hotel in Mombasa. And at about the same time, an Arkia Flight 582 was taking off at the airport in Mombasa. There were at least two missiles fired at that jetliner. It did not strike the jet. No one was injured on the plane.

You're looking now at video of it landing safely in Tel Aviv. Two hundred and sixty-one passengers on board. No one was injured. They were not even aware of the attack on their plane, the passengers, that is, until about 30 minutes before it landed. It was escorted by Israeli military aircraft as it approached landing there at the Tel Aviv airport.

We will continue to bring you developments on this story.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com