Hunt Continues For Lone Survivor
A Kenyan woman whom Israeli experts have been trying to free from the bombed rubble of a Nairobi office block for more than three days could still be alive, rescuers said Monday.
The woman, known only as Rose, has been pinned under tons of rubble since a car bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in the Kenyan capital on Friday, but Israeli rescuers said they heard tapping coming from her vicinity on Monday morning.
"I am full of hope she is alive and is hanging in there," said Meital Hallawi, a first officer in the Israeli army rescue unit leading the operation. "Rose is very strong."
The tapping was the first contact rescuers have had with possible survivors since Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, a top State Department official said a dozen people, including Sudanese and Iraqis, were detained in Tanzania as part of "a routine roundup."
Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice told reporters "don't attach too much importance to it," although she registered confidence the investigation would proceed in a prompt and professional way.
The State Department announced Monday a $2 million reward for information lreading to capture of those responsible for the bombings.
CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports that American firemen are joining the Israeli rescue units Monday, and they'll use chain saws to cut through the concrete slabs.
The ceilings appear to have fallen on the spot where Rose is trapped.
Pizzey reports that rescuers are closing in on a room where there believed to be a group of young girls from a secretarial school.
The smell of death is beginning to rise from the rubble, but work is going on with hope and grim determination. As long as there is a chance of one person being found alive, rescue workers say, they'll keep on digging.
The twin bombings in Kenya and Tanzania have claimed more than 200 lives and left more than 5,000 injured.
In Washington Monday, flags remained at half staff in memory of the victims. In Africa, the bodies of 11 Americans were loaded onto an Air Force plane for a final trip back to the United States Monday. The 12th American, Jean Dalizu, who was married to a Kenyan, will be buried in her adopted homeland.
Investigators, meanwhile, warned it could take time to identify the perpetrators of the bomb attacks which struck the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania minutes apart on Friday morning. More than 100 FBI agents have been assigned to the two African nations to follow up on the bombing investigations.
In Tanzania, a U.S. official said a security camera mounted atop the bombed embassy in Dar es Salaam may have captured the bombers in the act. He gave no details about what the tape might show.
The death toll in Kenya stands at 176, according to a government committee set up to deal with the crisis, and U.S. officials said this number included 12 Americans. More than 5,000 people were inured.
In Tanzania, 10 people died and more than 70 were wounded.
The site and the circumstances of the Dar es Salaam bomb could prove more likely to provide clues to the identity of the bombers.
A previously unknown Islamic group, calling itself "The Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Places," on Saturday claimed responsibility for the two bombings and vowed more attacks to drive American and Western troops from Moslem countries.
It said the Nairobi bombing was carried out by two men from Mecca in Saudi Arabia, while an Egyptian staged the Dar es Salaam attack. It did not mention the fate of the men.
U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger told American television on Sunday it was far too soon to publicly identify possible suspects but added: "We take all of that seriously."
U.S. officials said they would fly out the bodies of the American dead on Monday morning. They would travel to Frankfurt before continuing to the United States.
Dozens of U.S. medical assistants and forensic experts have arrived in the region to help the two East African nations cope with the tragedy. They have been joined by experts from South Africa, Israel, France, Britain and Germany.