Kenya remembers bombing, urges Mideast peace

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The world must solve crises in the Middle East and Somalia or they will spawn more of the extremism that led to bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa a decade ago, Kenya's prime minister warned on Thursday.

Raila Odinga was speaking at a ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of explosions that tore through Washington's missions in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and killed more than 200 people, mostly local Africans.

The attacks were blamed on al Qaeda -- the first time Osama bin Laden's group had burst onto the world stage.

"The scale of this atrocity shocked our nation to the core," Odinga said after laying a wreath at the site of Nairobi blast.

"We must leave no stone unturned in fighting the scourge of terrorism. But at the same time, unless we provide just solutions to political crises such as those in the Middle East, new extremists will continue to be created," he added.

At a commemoration ceremony at the U.S. State Department in Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid tribute to "innocent people stolen from us in a moment of terror."

Rice said the embassy bombings were seen in a new light following al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the bombing of the USS Cole warship off the coast of Yemen in 2000 and other incidents.

"We see them (the embassy bombings) as they were, as the opening of a new twilight struggle between hope and fear, peace and hatred, freedom and tyranny -- a struggle that has now finally fully been joined," said Rice.

Rice is mediating slow-paced peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians and Odinga called for the swift creation of an independent Palestinian state with secure borders for Israel.

SOMALIA CONNECTION

Odinga also urged the U.N. Security Council to end violence and suffering that has plagued Kenya's chaotic neighbor Somalia.

"We must do not only because it is our humanitarian duty. A lawless Somalia threatens Kenya's security," he said.

The United States says several al Qaeda operatives suspected of being behind the 1998 bombings have sought refuge in Somalia.

This weekend, police on the Kenyan coast said they narrowly missed catching one of them, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, after he slipped back over the border for medical treatment in Malindi.

Odinga vowed his government would never let down its guard.

"The stark revelations of the last few days have reminded us yet again that we have terrorists in our midst still planning awful deeds," Odinga said in his speech.

Dudley Simms, a U.S. diplomat who survived the embassy bombing in Tanzania, said in Washington that those responsible for such attacks would be caught and brought to justice.

"We are better off than those evil-doers who have to look over their shoulders, cover their backs and hide in their holes, day and night," he told fellow diplomats. "They are the ones who are running and we will catch them all," he said to applause.

(Additional reporting by Sue Pleming in Washington; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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