Nairobi — Secrets of how the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden operated throughout East Africa have now emerged.

A key group of 10 terrorists - all branded highly dangerous by the police - were able to plan and execute the three major bombings that rocked the region: the 1998 blasts at the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and the 2002 car bomb attack on the Paradise Hotel at Kikambala, near Mombasa.

Together the bombings killed 275 people and injured more than 5,000 others.

The same terrorist cell also carried out the foiled missile attack on an Israeli jetliner as it left Mombasa airport, at the same time as the hotel bombing.

The men, among them Kenyans willing to cause death and destruction in their own country, posed as ordinary traders in Mombasa and Mogadishu, the Somalia capital.

Yet they evolved into an armed group of mass murderers with the ability to gather crucial intelligence that led them to attack crucial American, British, Israeli and Australian interests in the region.

Details of the way they went about their sinister work, their motives and their masterminds, are revealed in a report by the anti-terrorism police, based on a confession by one of the terrorists who has since been jailed.

Quoting a confession by a Mr Omar Said Omar, the report states the al Qaeda terrorists had a network reaching from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania through Eastleigh in Nairobi and numerous bases and hideaways in Mombasa and Lamu to the Somalia cities of Mdoa, Buurgao, Mogadishu and Kismayu.

The terrorists, passing themselves off as dealers in seafood, engaged in the covert recruitment and training of terrorists in both Somalia and Afghanistan, preparing them for Jihad, or holy war, against foreign targets in Kenya and Tanzania.

The plotters, the report states, used fake passports and identity cards and a code language to pass on messages. Named as among the ring leaders of al Qaeda in East African is Mr Harun Abdullah Fazul Mohammed, alias Abdulkarim.

Mr Fazul, who was a prime target of the US-led raids last week in Southern Somalia's Afmadow area, is on the FBI's Most Wanted List and is described by his compatriots as the one "who did the surveillance work of Moi Airport in Mombasa" - scene of the 2002 missile attack on an Israeli airliner. Two other terrorists - Mr Haruni Bamusa and Mr Fumo Mohamed Fumo -were in the vehicle that delivered the bomb to the Paradise Hotel at Kikambala and died in the resulting explosion.

Other people named by police as terrorists in the al Qaeda cell are Mr Swaleh Nabhan and Mr Issa Osman Issa. Both of them are still on the run and remain on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

Another terrorist, Mr Faizal Ali Nassor, died in a grenade blast he unleashed near the Mombasa Central Police Station in 2003 in which a police officer was also killed.

Serving sentence

The author of the confession, Mr Omar Said Omar, is serving an eight-year jail sentence here in Kenya after being convicted of being in possession of five anti-tank missiles and a hand grenade.

He first travelled to Mdoa, in southern Somalia, in 1998 and later moved to Kismayu.

While in Kismayu, he said, Mr Issa Osman Issa first talked to him about Jihad or holy war. After a short stay in Kismayu, the group moved to Mogadishu where Mr Omar was trained on how to use firearms.

Mr Omar details in his statement how he smoothed the way for the escape through Lamu to Somalia for the terrorists after the Kikambala carnage. He had to rent a house in Lamu and then hire a boat to spirit the gang from Kenya to Somalia.

He said he received a call from Mr Issa on November 28, 2002 at around 10am, who told him "the operation" was over and that he should be prepared because they were coming.

"When Issa Osman Issa and Swale Nabhan arrived in Lamu on November 29, 2002, they explained to me what had happened. They told me that they fired the missiles at the aeroplane but they did not get it," said Mr Omar in his confession.

During the bombing of the Paradise Hotel and the attack on the aircraft the attackers used code words like Rain to mean all is well, Dry meaning a lot of police operations or tight security, or no tourist activities.

Also used was term Njuluku meaning money, Wedding meaning an operation or attacks on targets, Guest meaning visitors and Girlfriend meaning wife. They also used codes on their telephone numbers.

Mr Omar's stament was recorded by Mr John Mulalulu, a police superintendent attached to the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit in Nairobi, while gathering evidence to support murder charges against the masterminds of the Kikambala bombing.