Cairo, Egypt ? A statement attributed to al-Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for last week’s car-bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya and the attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner the same day.

The statement, posted on an Islamic Web site, called the Thursday attacks a Ramadan greeting to the Palestinian people and referred to the al-Qaida attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 231 people – including 12 Americans – and wounded more than 5,000.

“At the same place where the ‘Jewish Crusader coalition’ was hit four years ago … here the fighters of al-Qaida came back once again to strike heavily against that evil coalition. But this time, it was against Jews,” the statement said.

It was impossible to verify the veracity of the claim. In Washington, U.S. counterterrorism officials said they considered the claim credible and part of growing evidence that al-Qaida was involved in the Kenya attacks.

Three suicide bombers attacked the Paradise Hotel, killing 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and the three bombers. Just minutes before the hotel bombing, two Strela missiles narrowly missed an Israeli charter plane departing from Mombasa’s airport, in what was the first phase of the dual attack on Israelis in Kenya.