Kenya’s tour operators are particularly concerned that these two attacks could be devastating to the country’s billion-dollar tourism industry, a pillar of the national economy. Kenyan security officials have already been building up forces on the Somali border, saying that the chaos from Somalia, which has not had a central government for more than 20 years,is increasingly seeping into Kenya.

Now some Kenyan officials want to get even more aggressive against Somali bandits. “We need to destroy them,” Kenya’s tourism minister, Najib Balala, said Saturday. “If we have to go across and attack them, I think it’s high time we do that.”

According to witnesses, a speedboat carrying 9 or 10 heavily armed Somalis quietly slipped into the channel between Lamu and Manda islands around 3 a.m. Saturday. Lamu is fabled for its pristine beaches, centuries-old ruins and $1,000-a-night guesthouses, and it is one of the best known tourist destinations in East Africa. Manda Island is just across a narrow channel that is usually plied by sunburned windsurfers and classic wooden dhows rather than gunmen in speedboats. The islands are about 60 miles south of the Somali border.

The kidnapping on Saturday mirrored what happened in Kiwayu, Kenya, on Sept. 11, when a speedboat of Somali gunmen zoomed up in the middle of the night to a fancy resort just south of the Somali border, burst into a bungalow and attacked a British couple. The gunmen killed the husband, bundled up the wife, and speeded away. According to Western officials, a pirate gang is holding the woman hostage deep within Somalia and demanding a multi-million dollar ransom.

Over the past several years, Somali pirates have hijacked dozens of ships, ransoming back the crews for millions of dollars. But the prospect of Somali pirate gangs striking on land — and inside Kenya — is unnerving to many people across the region.