Police gun down terror suspect

Police in Mombasa had been tracking for two years the telephone conversations of the terror suspect they gunned down on Tuesday.

Ismail Mohammed Shosi was shot dead after police raided the rental house he was hiding in in Mwandoni in Kisauni, Mombasa. Weapons were recovered.

According to sources, Shosi has been evading police by changing Sim cards.

Shosi has been earning a living by selling drugs. “We know Shosi very well. He was a drug peddler and he has been working with the police. It cannot be possible that he always escaped police dragnets,” said a source in Old Town.

A neighbour in Kisauni said: “The man has been coming at the house always wearing a cap. He usually came at night once a month. He rarely spent more than 30 minutes in it,” said the neighbour who did not want to be identified for security reasons.

Last year, Nelson Marwa, who was then the county commissioner for Mombasa and is now the regional coordinator for the coast, said Shosi was the leader of a hit squat targeting police officers.

According to the police, the hit squad used religious attire, including buibuis, to disguise themselves and hide their weapons.

Shosi has been linked to teh killings of government officials among them a National Intelligence Service officer Hashim Salman in July last year.

On Tuesday, police recovered, a G3 rifle, 118 rounds of ammunition and training manuals from Shosi who had a Sh2million bounty on his head.

A TIP-OFF

According to Kisauni police chief Richard Ngatia, the suspect was killed after a tip-off from the public.

“We had also been trailing him for the past two years. He had been on the list of the most wanted. Today was his final day and we thank the public for all these. He tried to shoot at our officers but he was gunned down immediately,” said Mr Ngatia.

Coast Regional Coordinator Nelson Marwa, who visited the scene, said the house in which Shosi had been hiding belonged to Fatuma Masuo, the widow of an al-Qaeda operative who had been killed in 2013.

“The recovered rifle belongs to one of our officers. We have been trailing him. He has been disguising himself all the time,” said Mr Marwa.

In January, Shosi is believed to have killed an officer guarding Gulf Bank in Bondeni, and stole his rifle.

Shosi appeared in a Mombasa court in October 7, 2013 when he was charged with assaulting a schoolboy.

Since then police believed he joined the terrorist group al-Shabaab and was trained by Jeysh al-Ayman in Boni forest, Lamu.

By the time of going to press, his family was in the process of seeking authority to bury him.