Al-Shabaab assassin on the prowl, police warn

Police have warned that there is an Al-Shabaab assassin on the loose in Mombasa and appealed for information that could lead to his arrest. 

Ali Zira, according to police, is behind attacks in Lamu, Mombasa and Garissa blamed on the Somalia-based terrorist group that has active cells in Kenya.

According to a document shared among security agencies and seen by the Sunday Nation, he is said to have killed Mr Ahmed Bakshwen, a prominent businessman in Malindi, in 2014. Mr Bakshwen was shot three times while seated in his car.

FUGITIVE

Police reservists Ahmed Salim Aliyan and Faiz Mbalaus, who were assassinated in Malindi, were also linked to the fugitive.

Security agencies released the man’s photograph and offered Sh2 million to anybody with information that would lead to his arrest.

“Police have identified a key Al-Shabaab operative who is believed to be an assassin at the coast and is said to have been the mastermind of many attacks in the region, including assassinations and beheadings. The suspect, who is on the run, is privy to Al-Shabaab activities in the coastal region and is involved in the planning and execution of attacks,” said the document.

Zira, the police report adds, joined the terrorist group in 2012 and received military training in Somalia. The report adds that he fought alongside other terrorists in Somalia and later sneaked back to Kenya and established a terrorist cell in Malindi.

The document says his key lieutenant is Ahmed Said Omar, aka Dogo, also a fugitive.

ACCOMPLICE

His other accomplice, Hussein Said Omar, aka Babli, was killed in a gun battle with police in Bamburi.

“He is also believed to have been involved in the June 2014 Mpeketoni attacks where more than 60 civilians were killed in one of the deadliest raids in coastal region,” the report says.

Al-Shabaab is known to run assassination units, particularly in Mogadishu where drive-by shootings and explosive devices are the preferred methods to target senior government officials.

“It took only minutes — a vehicle approaches and overtakes a car, winding through the streets of Mogadishu. Gunshots whiz though the air, glass shatters and the blood of a new member of Parliament, and that of his bodyguard, spills into the streets,” wrote CNN in 2015, describing the assassination of MP Abdullah Hussein Mohamud.

Kenyan security agencies have heightened anti-terror activities in recent weeks even as the militants increase bomb attacks in Somalia.

At the same time, five Kenyan women are in State custody after they escaped from an al-Shabaab camp in Somalia.

WAR

The women aged 19 to 22 years have told security agents how they ran out of the camp at night after the militants left for war.

One of the women had been held captive for three years, the others had been there for between one and one-and-a-half years, according to a security source privy to interviews conducted on the women.

After walking through narrow paths and bushes, they arrived at a village where they sought help, the official added. But they were warned they could not stay for fear of reprisals from Al-Shabaab.

The villagers, according to the official, offered them food and water then sent them away, but with directions that hopefully would lead them to a military camp.

Their trek led them to a road where they were spotted by a Kenya Defence Forces patrol unit, who picked them up.

The women said they did not know where they were being held, but going by the location they were found, they were in Lower Juba region.

CARTELS

Three of them sneaked to Somalia on their own while the other two were victims of human smuggling cartels.

They are sheltered in one of the government’s rehabilitation centres established to reform Al-Shabaab members who opt to surrender.

During the debriefs, the women said they were assigned cooking and cleaning chores at the camp. They were also given to Al-Shabaab commanders as sex slaves.

When they arrived in Somalia, they were allowed to call their families and inform them that they were safe. Thereafter, communication to friends and relatives back home was forbidden.

“They also spoke of being given little white pills to swallow by the commanders,” according to the source. The women, who were received at rehabilitation centres on October 30, are undergoing psychological and other medical tests.

The government has been working with their families since they were reported missing earlier in the year.

SUICIDE BOMBERS

It is estimated that more than 400 Kenyans have sneaked into Somalia and are at the behest of Al-Shabaab. While men are trained as fighters and suicide bombers, most women are married off to militants.

Kenyan security agencies have also unearthed a syndicate comprising recruiters who lure innocent girls and women to Somalia through deception. They are promised well-paying jobs.

Others are victims of kidnap by human smuggling cartels.

In August, three Kenyan women who were lured to Libya by the Islamic State two years ago were brought back after they were arrested in Egypt.

Firthoza Ali Ahmed, 29, Aisha Mafudh Ashur, 24 and Tawfiqa Dahir Adan, 24, were arrested by Egyptian authorities in Cairo on August 24. They were detained for two days and then handed over to the Kenyan embassy.

They told interrogators that they had escaped from an ISIS operative in Libya who had held them captive.

ISLAMIC STATE

Separately, a 25-year-old Kenyan is among four people publicly executed by Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia. Mr Omar Adar Omar, from Garissa, was killed by firing squad on Monday.

The terrorist group accused the four of spying for the Africa Union Mission in Somalia.

Kenya Defence Forces is part of the mission that is fighting the terror group in the unstable country.

Other victims of the execution were identified as Abdirisack Hashi Abas, Mustaf Moalom Hassan, and Mohamed Aba Mayow.

Al-Shabaab militants rounded up residents of Bualle town, including women and children, to witness the killings.

“In areas under its control, al-Shabaab has carried out many executions, floggings, and amputations after summary trials in cases ranging from espionage to theft,” the report said.

It is not the first time the terror grouped linked to Al-Qaeda, and most recently to the Islamic State, has executed militants suspected of spying, most of them foreigners.

In 2015, Mustafa Hassan Mohamed, a former student at Isiolo Boys High School, was executed after he complained that Al-Shabaab attacks in Garissa and Mandera targeted Muslims and children.