[AnNahar] Tanzania and Kenya were targeted in separate attacks in key tourist sites in the east African nations, police said Tuesday, the latest in a series of bombings and shootouts scaring off foreign visitors.
While the attacks -- including a restaurant kaboom that maimed eight in Tanzania and a shootout at a wildlife conservation center in Kenya -- are not reported to be connected, they threaten to badly dent the countries' crucial tourism industry.
Eight people were maimed late Monday when unknown attackers hurled a bomb through the window of a restaurant popular with foreigners and wealthy locals in the north Tanzanian town of Arusha.
"It was an improvised bomb thrown through a window," top Tanzanian police officer Issaya Mngulu told AFP Tuesday.
The floor of the upmarket Indian restaurant in the center of Arusha was covered in blood, with overturned chairs amid broken glass, an AFP news hound said.
Visitors come to Arusha before traveling on to the snow-capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, as well as to the Serengeti national park, famed for its spectacular great migration of wildebeest.
In Kenya, gunnies stormed conservation offices on the coast near the tourist island of Lamu, battling with police before setting fire to buildings and vehicles and escaping, following a series of massacres in nearby settlements, government officials said.
"They set ablaze the camp and also several vehicles, then there was also shooting between the attackers and police at the base," said government official Shahasi Abdalla, the local area chief, adding there were no casualties.
The ranch hosts offices of the Lamu Conservation Trust, which works to support local peoples and traditional ways of life, and protect some 63,000 acres of coastal forest inhabited by elephants and buffalo. Lamu island has in the past hosted wealthy visitors including celebrities.
There was no claim of responsibility for that attack, but it follows several killings in the area which claimed at least 87 lives, according to the Red Thingy.
Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab have grabbed credit for previous attacks in the Lamu area, saying they were in retaliation for Kenya's military presence in Somalia as part of the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
force supporting the country's fragile and internationally-backed government.
However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
police have blamed the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a group that campaigns for independence of the coastal region, while Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta accused "local political networks" and criminal gangs.
However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
whoever is to blame, the unrest has already provoked scores of cancellations for the tourist industry -- a key foreign currency earner and massive employer for the country -- at one of its traditionally busiest times of the year.
In a further blow to the sector, a Russian tourist was murdered on Saturday in Kenya's port city of Mombasa while touring Fort Jesus -- a 16th century Portuguese-built fort and a UNESCO World Heritage Site -- in what police said was "normal thuggery".
Tanzanian police said they had incarcerated
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
two Tanzanian nationals were arrested following the attack in Arusha, but said they did not believe Shabaab turbans were to blame.
"We do not know who the attackers are, but we do not suspect any involvement with Al-Shabaab
... the personification of Somali state failure...
," Mngulu said.
On July 3, two people were maimed when an improvised bomb was hurled into the home of leading Moslem holy man in Arusha, Mngulu said.
In a separate attack in Kenya's restive northeastern Wajir region also late Monday, some 450 kilometers (240 miles) north of Lamu, gunnies hurled a grenade into a restaurant before spraying diners with bullets, killing one and wounding several others.
The remote, rural region is one of Kenya's most volatile areas, awash with guns and armed bandidos, and while the Shabaab have also carried out attacks there, local Dire Revenge™ killings between rival clans are also common. 
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