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Africa Horn
Kenya to deport terror convict to Britain
2023-07-18
[Garowe] Kenya is set to deport a convicted terrorist to Britannia, Daily Mail reports, with preliminary investigations showing that the accused is closely connected to the famous "White Widow" Samantha Lewthwaite,
...daughter of a British soldier who decided being a jihadi gun moll was more romantic, and mother of four. After converting to Islam as a schoolgirl, she worked her way bed by bed husband after husband up the Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda organizations. Though decidedly female, she reportedly was the key organizer of various jihadi plots in England and the Horn of Africa, and may be responsible for as many as 400 deaths. Her husbands, in order, were Germaine Lindsay, former Kenyan naval officer Abdi Wahid, Al Qaeda henchman Fahmi Jamal Salim, whose brother-in-law was al-Qaeda recruiter Musa Dheere, then Somali warlord/Al Shabaab big turban 'Sheikh Hassan' (Hassan Maalim Ibrahim), whom she deserted for Yemen only last year...
who is linked to several attacks.

Jermaine Grant, 40,
...a Jamaican-Brit convert to Islam and habitué of the notorious Brixton Mosque, he is believed to have become radicalized in the same British prison as "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who claimed allegiance to Al Qaeda and also worshipped at Brixton Mosque. Mr. Grant then headed to Somalia to join the glorious jihad...
faces removal from Kenya after serving nine years in jail for possessing bomb-making materials and forging immigration papers. He was tried and convicted of planning attacks against hotels in the country.

The decision to release him and subsequent deportation to Britannia could raise questions about the safety of the European nation, which has been keen on fighting terror. It is not clear if Kenya has contacted London ahead of the execution of the plan.
We don’t want him, you can have him, he’s too jihad for us...
Grant was prosecuted in Kenya after police found chemicals, switches, and a bomb-making manual in a flat he shared with Lewthwaite, whose husband Germaine Lindsay was one of the four jacket wallahs who together killed 52 people in London in 2005, Daily Mail notes.
The Jamaican-born British convert to Islam went kaboom on a London Underground train on 7/7/2005.
When police swooped on the flat in 2012, Lewthwaite had fled, escaping just minutes earlier after Grant allegedly warned her with a text message, saying: ’The lions are inside. One of them is very watchful like a bird watches a stone.’ She is still on the lam.

Details in possession of the security teams indicate that Grant was born in Newham, East London. According to reports, Grant had plans to unleash terror attacks on hotels frequented by tourists in Kenya's coastal town of Mombasa. Prosecutors also linked him to al-Shabaab
...... an Islamic infestation centering on Somalia attempting to metastasize into Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and similar places, all ofwhich have enough problems without them...
murderous Moslems.

A team of counter-terrorism officers from Scotland Yard flew to Kenya to assist in his prosecution. Met Detective Inspector John Reilly told Grant’s trial in 2014: ’We know that the chemicals found at Grant’s house were designed to make a bomb. We believe the gang was at the end of its preparations.’

Grant was convicted of possession of bomb-making materials but was acquitted in 2019 of ’conspiracy to commit a felony’ in relation to the terror plot. Now he faces a court in Kenya on Wednesday to decide whether he should be deported.

Prosecutor Bernard Ngiri has filed an application to kick him out of the country as an ’unwanted immigrant’ after he was released from prison on June 24. The High Court will determine his deportation and it is highly likely that the application will be granted.

Kenya is fighting terror groups mainly the al-Shabaab who have encroached on the country from neighboring Somalia. The group has heightened attacks in the Northern Frontier Districts and Lamu, leading to the delay in reopening the Kenya-Somalia border.
Related:
Jermaine Grant: 2015-02-03 DPP appeals acquittal of British terror suspect Jermaine Grant
Jermaine Grant: 2014-05-06 Bomb attacks: Kenya deputy president blames judges
Jermaine Grant: 2014-02-18 British Islamist in Kenya 'Possessed Bomb-Making Instructions'
Related:
Samantha Lewthwaite: 2022-01-17 British-born terrorist divorces 4th husband, leaves Somalia for Yemen
Samantha Lewthwaite: 2019-01-01 UK’s notorious female terrorist ‘plotting new attack in London’
Samantha Lewthwaite: 2017-05-02 Al-Shabab suspect nabbed at UK Parliament Square
Related:
Germaine Lindsay: 2022-07-10 A Lesson the West Ignored From 7/7
Germaine Lindsay: 2022-01-17 British-born terrorist divorces 4th husband, leaves Somalia for Yemen
Germaine Lindsay: 2019-01-01 UK’s notorious female terrorist ‘plotting new attack in London’
Link


Africa Horn
DPP appeals acquittal of British terror suspect Jermaine Grant
2015-02-03
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The Director of Public Prosecutions has appealed the acquittal of British terror suspect Jermaine Grant of nine charges he was facing at a magistrate's court.

Through Principal Prosecution Counsel Jami Yamina, the DPP wants the High Court to reverse the decision of the magistrate and substitute the order for acquittal in each count with a finding of guilt and consequently sentence Mr Grant.

Last week, Shanzu Senior Resident Magistrate Anastasia Ndung'u acquitted Mr Grant of the charges, among them making a false statement for register of birth.

The DPP said the magistrate erred in law by acquitting Mr Grant, having found offences had been committed, and hence the acquittal amounted to a miscarriage of justice.

"The magistrate erred in law by acquitting the respondent on all the nine counts against the weight of evidence," said Mr Yamina.

Mr Yamina further argued that Ms Ndung'u erred in law by acquitting the respondent having found the accomplice's evidence was credible and corroborated hence the same could form a basis for a conviction.
Link


Africa Horn
Bomb attacks: Kenya deputy president blames judges
2014-05-06
[Washington Post] Faced with rising public anger over a wave terror attacks, Kenya's deputy president appeared on Monday to blame the attacks on judges who have given bail to terror suspects.

William Ruto said that terror suspects Jamal Mohammed Awadh and Suleiman Mohammed Sayyed were free on bail and died Saturday while carrying out attacks on the Kenyan coast.

However,
denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
the families of the two men deny the two were involved or had been charged earlier.

Ruto claimed 22 other suspects accused of terrorism are out on bail and roaming freely in the country. He also cited the case of Fuad Abubakar Maswab, who is believed to have fled to Somalia while out on $116,000 bail.

Fuad, along with two British citizens, is accused of planning attacks over Christmas and New Year's in 2011. One British suspect, Jermaine Grant, who has been remanded while his case is being heard, was found with explosives, Ruto said. The other British suspect, Samantha Lewthwaite, is still on the lam.

"We call on the judiciary to be a strong partner in the war against terror. We call on all players in the justice, law and order sector to stand with Kenyans. The Constitution provides a robust framework of civil liberties, which all Kenyans are meant to enjoy. The liberties must work for Kenyans, not against Kenyans," he said.

"We believe that there is more that the judiciary can do," Ruto said.

The families of Awadh and Sayyed held a presser Monday in the coastal city of Mombasa where they said they were victims of Saturday's blast at a bus stop.
Link


Africa Horn
British Islamist in Kenya 'Possessed Bomb-Making Instructions'
2014-02-18
[An Nahar] A British detective gave evidence Monday in Kenya at the trial of suspected British hard boy Jermaine Grant, accused of ties to Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab and plotting attacks.

Grant was tossed in the slammer
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
in December 2011 in Mombasa with various chemicals, batteries and switches, which prosecutors say he planned to use to make explosives. He denies the charges.

In Monday's hearing, the counter-terrorism officer, Detective Inspector Stephen Ball, told the court that Jihadist documents and other materials "clearly dedicated to the making of explosives and weaponry" were found on a flash storage drive allegedly in Grant's possession.

The detective said other document detailed chemicals that could be used to make explosives, and various ways of making booby-traps to target government officials, police or bomb disposal teams.

"These files speak for themselves and show the person's interest in the construction of an improvised bomb, and with the chemicals files show intent to obtain the materials to make such a device," the court was told.

Prosecutors have accused Grant, a 30-year-old Mohammedan convert, of working with fellow Briton Samantha Lewthwaite -- the runaway widow of British jacket wallah Germaine Lindsay, who went kaboom! on a London Underground train on July 7, 2005, killing 26 people.

Lewthwaite, a mother-of-three and daughter of a British soldier, is wanted by Kenyan police and there was some speculation that she was involved in last year's Westgate mall siege in Nairobi.

Grant is believed to have become radicalized as a teenager in the same British prison where "shoe bomber" Richard Reid first turned to Islam.

Reid, who claimed he was an al-Qaeda recruit, is serving a life sentence in the United States for trying to blow up a flight from Gay Paree to Miami in December 2001.

In December 2011 Grant pleaded guilty to charges of being in the country illegally and lying about his nationality, for which he was sentenced to two jail terms of two years, to run concurrently.

However,
there's more than one way to stuff a chicken...
he was acquitted of robbery charges in a separate trial in Nairobi last year.
Link


Africa Horn
Police nab suspected terrorism recruits
2014-01-12
[Shabelle] SIX youth suspected to be alshabab recruits were on Thursday evening intercepted by the police in Mararani area in Lamu East.

Police intercepted the youth as they attempted to croos into Somalia through Kiunga route.

The six Faraj Fahim Swaleh ,Twafiq Swaleh, Nabil Mohammed Lali, Fara Abdi Kassim and Mohammed Abdalla are being held at Lamu Police Station.

Lamu East police boss Samson Obara said detectives acting on intelligence reports intercepted a passenger bus plying the Mombasa-Lamu road.

He said the youth planned to sneak into Somalia through Kiunga border to join the altshaabab Death Eaters.
"We placed in durance vile
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
them at 5pm. They are believed to have left Mombasa on Wednesday at around 2pm. We were informed by our people that they had boarded a Tahmeed Company bus before boarding another bus."

Obara said the youths aged between 16 and 18 years claimed they were going for a fishing expedition in Somalia.

"We had suspected that they were within Hindi, Mokowe and Lamu Island. We arrested them between Kiunga and Maangani in a place known as Mararani," he said.

Police said the six are among foreigners who have joined the alshabab group to undergo military training and carryout offensives inside Somalia.

Intelligence agents said the youth are trained how to assemble and detonate bombs, use weapons, and carry out terror strikes.

Obara said the youth are the latest batch of myrmidon youths joining the Rag tag alshabab terror group blamed plotting attacks in the country since the incursion of Kenya Defence Forces' troops in Somalia in 2011.

The youth were yesterday handed over to a team of anti terrorism coppers for further grilling.

The detectives confiscated their mobile phones to assist in apprehending key alshabab recruiters in the country.

Speaking to the star on phone Obara said, "We will contact mobile phone companies to establish their communication to establish the wide network of alshabab recruitment,"

The police officer said the bully boyz have developed several operational cells in Mombasa Kisauni Kilifi and south coast for the purpose of recruiting and launching attacks from within the country.

A Kenyan Fuad Abubakar Manswad, an accomplice of German terror suspect John Jermaine Grant is among key Death Eater leaders suspected to be funding and recruiting youths.

A senior ATPU said Abubakar is suspected to be coordinating the terror activities in the country by funding and training youth to fight in Somalia and launch attacks in Kenya.

Abubakar was arrested with Grant and charged with being in possession of explosives as they allegedly planned to carryout attacks in Mombasa on December 2010 in Kisauni district.

He however later jumped bail in November 2011 after he was released on Sh 20 milion bond.

The police boss implored members of the public to cooperate with the police to curb any crime in the area
"We are urging our people to help us catch any suspicious person in the town and along the Ocean. Without their cooperation we will not be able to fight crimes effectively," he said.

The police boss said that there was no need for alarm. He encouraged tourists to visit the area.

"We haveput a round the clock surveillance and therefore there is no need for any alarm. All those tourists who have planned to be in Lamu should come because security here is very tight," said he.
Link


Africa Horn
How Ikrima became a Shaboob
2013-10-26
[Shabelle] Abdukadir Mohammed Abdukadir, a senior operative from the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab
... the personification of Somali state failure...
, who was the target of an unsuccessful raid by US special forces last month, travelled to London in 2007, the BBC has learned.

The man, widely known as Ikrima, also applied, unsuccessfully, for asylum in Norway.

He is linked to a number of alleged terror plots in Kenya, one involving Samantha Lewthwaite, the British widow of one of the jacket wallahs who attacked the London transport system in 2005.

The only pictures we have of Ikrima show him as a smiling immigrant in Norway.

Taken, it is thought around 2005, a year after he moved to Scandinavia, he appears happy in his new rural Scandinavian home.

In 2008, he left for Somalia, where he is now thought to be a senior recruiter of imported muscle, and a possible link between al-Shabaab in Somalia and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen.

Smoking marijuana

How did this transformation occur?

In Eastleigh, a district of the Kenyan capital Nairobi with a large Somali population, we met "Haji".

Haji is not his real name, he wants to remain anonymous. He is a former al-Shabaab fighter, and he knew Ikrima well.

"He came from Mombasa with his family," he says. "His family were middle class, a very virtuous family."

As teenagers, Haji and Ikrima would hang out together in Eastleigh, smoking marijuana and chewing the stimulant, khat.

In 2004 Ikrima moved to Norway, and the pair lost touch. Four years later, Haji joined al-Shabaab. When he got to Mogadishu, he was surprised to be reunited with his old friend.

"When I met him, I saw that he had changed. We used to play, we used to hug each other, whenever we met, [now] there was nothing like that.

"The guy has changed, totally changed.

"This guy called Ikrima was never on the battle ground, never on the frontline. But the guy was a strategist. He plans. He plans so extreme that, you know, those with him they say: 'Oh, that is too much, Ikrima.'"

'Awakening process'

Haji says Ikrima was aloof, keeping company mainly with al-Shabaab's imported muscle, who he says got preferential treatment in the organization.

He does not know where his former friend was recruited, whether it was in Norway or Somalia, or during a visit to London in early 2007.

Haji's own recruitment began in the same year. A local preacher had gone around Eastleigh targeting young, unemployed men.

"That was the time of the awakening process in Iraq," he says.

"And then all of a sudden [the preacher] had these jihadist videos, [showing] how the Moslems are being killed, being raped.

"He said: 'Now the war is coming to our ancestral lands. It's our obligation to defend it.'

And the preacher said: 'I'm providing you with wages, allowances, salaries, maybe even if you like, to get married.'
And he said: 'I'm providing you with wages, allowances, salaries, maybe even if you like, to get married.'"

'Ashamed of my actions'

Haji says the preacher promised him $1,000 (£600) per month. But when he got to Somalia, the money never materialised. He never got paid.

After three years, Haji became disillusioned with life as a jihadi.

He fled al-Shabaab and returned to Kenya. Of 14 young recruits from his neighbourhood, he says that he is the only one who made it back.

Looking back, Haji regrets his time with al-Shabaab.

"What a fool I was. Now I am feeling ashamed of my actions. Why did I waste all that time, when I could do something better in life?"

Ikrima, meanwhile, is thought to be still in Somalia.

Leaked Kenyan intelligence documents have linked him to Ms Lewthwaite, the British widow of Germaine Lindsey, who was one of four suicide bombers who attacked the London transport system on 7 July 2005.

Ikrima and Ms Lewthwaite are said to have conspired, along with a second British suspect, Jermaine Grant, to bomb targets in Kenya. The alleged plot was foiled when Kenyan police nabbed
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
Mr Grant in Mombasa in December 2011.

Ms Lewthwaite slipped away, but at her home police found a diary containing musings on the life of a jihadi.

"Recently my husband gave a talk to my eight-year-old son and five-year-old daughter," it reads.

"He asked them: What do you want to be when you are older. Both agreed to wanting to be a mujahid [jihadi]," she writes

It is not clear what role, if any, Ikrima or Ms Lewthwaite might have played in the attack on the Westgate shopping mall last month.

Neither is thought to have been inside the building. But the authorities believe apprehending them is key to preventing similar attacks in the future.
Link


Africa Horn
Westgate terror suspect denied bail amidist fears of fleeing Kenya
2013-10-19
[Shabelle] An Al-Shabaab
... the personification of Somali state failure...
suspect linked to the Westgate attack has been denied bail by a Mombasa court.

Police fear Swaleh Abdalla, who is also suspected to have killed four Kenyan jihadists in Somalia sometime back, can flee the country if freed on bond. They say he belongs to Al-Shabaab and could flee to its strongholds in Somalia the same way another terror suspect, Fuad Abubakar Manswab, who was facing charges alongside British terror suspect Jermaine Grant did.
Abdalla has been in detention since last week after police incarcerated
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
him at Likoni in Mombasa and charged him with possession of explosives.

Anti-Terror Police Unit Corporal Bernard Mudavadi told Mombasa Senior Principal Magistrate Richard Odenyo that they were apprehensive Abdalla could cross over to Somali if released.

Prosecutor Chief Inspector Simon Waithaka said Mudavadi had sworn an affidavit asking the court to deny Abdalla bond as he was a flight risk.

"We wish to oppose the release of the suspect as there are compelling reasons that the accused can jump bail," said Waithaka.

Abdalla, who is suspected to have killed four jihadist recruits from Central Province after they rebelled, is facing 30-year jail term if convicted.

He denied that on October 10 this year at Likoni he was found in possession of one hand grenade while preparing to commit felony.
Link


Africa Horn
National Intelligence Service brief showed Al-Shabaab cell had been activated in Mombasa
2013-09-25
[Shabelle] The spy agency wrote a report a month ago indicating it had received information showing that an Al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
cell had been activated in Mtopanga, Mombasa.

The National Intelligence Service report alleged that four men or mujahidin had crossed from Somalia through Kiunga into Mombasa around August 15 to join the cell, which includes two radical holy mans.

One of the holy mans identified as Ismail (second named withheld) was said to be the head of the Mtopanga cell.

According to an intelligence brief seen by The Standard, the four men whose identities and nationalities were not indicated were newly trained jihadists with a mission to strike targets in Mombasa and Nairobi to mark the first anniversary of the August 27, 2012, killing of radical Islamist Sheikh Aboud Rogo.

The two holy mans were to co-ordinate attacks against shopping malls, cop shoppes, churches and other installations as Mombasa prepared to mark several functions, including a presidential visit.

"Yes we are aware of that intelligence report and we know that there are plans by Al-Shaabab to attack functions that are highly populated. We are on 'red alert' because as you are aware, from Sunday there will be several international functions and we expect high-profile visitors in the region," said Robert Kitur, Mombasa County Police Commander on August 22, when The Standard contacted him.

Plan to kill

The report also indicated that the snuffies planned to kill four officers from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit ATPU.

Kitur said police were doing "everything possible to avert the attacks" and urged members of the public to be extra vigilant.

President Uhuru Kenyatta toured Mombasa to commission Berth 19 at the port of Mombasa. According to the report, gunnies were planning to attack Bamburi, Likoni, Nyali, Kijipwa and Frere Town cop shoppes.

Intelligence officials in Mombasa have informally told The Standard that major attacks were averted by heightened surveillance or when the plans leaked but the alleged jihadists were not nabbed
Please don't kill me!
There are two theories on the jihadists' whereabouts, with some officials indicating the four men travelled out of Nairobi. It has also been suggested that the activation of the Mtopanga cell could have been a diversion as Al-Shabaab planned a massive attack in Nairobi.

Other intelligence accounts indicate that there have been a number of infiltrations of newly trained jihadists into Coast Province. Some are retreating due to disillusionment but others are returning to Kenya to wage jihad.

A key operative in the latter category is runaway Fuad Abubakar Manswab who is believed to have escaped to Kismayu in Somalia after jumping bail in a terrorist trial in which his co-accused is British terror suspect, Jermaine Grant.
Link


Africa Horn
British Islamist in Kenya had 'explosive' chemicals
2013-09-25
[ZA.NEWS.YAHOO] A British detective gave evidence Tuesday in Kenya at the trial of suspected British bully boy Jermaine Grant, accused of ties to Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab and plotting attacks.
Wow. Not the best time to be on trial in Kenya for terrorism.
Security was high for the trial in the port city of Mombasa, with Kenya on edge as the bloody siege at a Nairobi shopping mall, claimed by the Shabaab, runs into its fourth day with forces of Evil claiming to still hold hostages.

Grant was tossed in the slammer
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
in December 2011 in Mombasa with various chemicals, batteries and switches, which prosecutors say he planned to use to make explosives.

Robert John Garrick, one of three detectives to testify from London's Scotland Yard police, described how he and colleagues searched Grant's house in Mombasa for chemicals after he was arrested.

Separate chemicals including battery acid were found, which when combined can produce explosives, Garrick told the court.

Prosecutors have accused Grant, a 30-year-old Mohammedan convert, of working with fellow Briton Samantha Lewthwaite -- the runaway widow of British jacket wallah Germaine Lindsay, who went kaboom! on a London Underground train on July 7, 2005, killing 26 people.

Lewthwaite, a 29-year-old mother-of-three and daughter of a British soldier, is wanted by Kenyan police and has been named in media reports as one of the possible attackers in the ongoing Westgate mall siege in Nairobi.

Grant is believed to have become radicalised as a teenager in the same British prison where "shoe bomber" Richard Reid first turned to Islam.

Reid, who claimed he was an Al-Qaeda recruit, is serving a life sentence in the United States for trying to blow up a flight from Gay Paree to Miami in December 2001.

Grant is charged along with his Kenyan wife, Warda Breik Islam, and two other Kenyans. He has denied the charges.

The trial continues Wednesday.

In December 2011 Grant pleaded guilty to charges of being in the country illegally and lying about his nationality, for which he was sentenced to two jail terms of two years, to run concurrently.

However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
he was acquitted of robbery charges in a separate trial in Nairobi on September 13 this year.

The charges in that case included robbery with violence and raiding a cop shoppe over an incident in 2008, when Grant was arrested trying to enter war-torn Somalia dressed as a woman and later escaped custody in a shootout.
Link


Africa Horn
Wanted Briton linked to attack
2013-09-24
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] So maybe Wednesday it will be Jannah, (Islamic paradise) I look around at how beautiful Jihad is, It's alive in Kenya, It's alive in me, And I'm breathing Jihad, It's my time."

This is an excerpt from a poem written by Samantha Lewthwaite, the most wanted woman in the world. She is sought by security agencies in Kenya, South Africa, Britannia and the US.

She has long been believed to be hiding in Kenya and posted the poem on Twitter in September last year.

The 29-year-old mother of three reveals her ruthless intention: "I'd rather be receiving my martyrdom, think I'll get ready... and buy a vest."

As gunnies stormed the Westgate mall in Nairobi at about mid-day on Saturday, unleashing indiscriminate violence on defenceless men, women and kiddies, some witnesses recalled spotting a veiled woman in the group. They said she appeared to be commanding the others to shoot non-Moslems.

Lewthwaite, nicknamed "The White Widow" by Western media, was once married to Jermaine Lindsay, the bomber who went kaboom! in a train at London's King's Cross on July 7, 2005, killing 26 other people.

Lewthwaite denounced his actions and soon disappeared with the children. Her name only came to light again when she was linked with an investigation by Kenyan police into an Al-Shabaab
... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
terror cell planning attacks on Western targets in Mombasa early last year.

Their suspicions were raised when in November 2012, Briton Jermaine Grant was charged in a Mombasa court with being an Al-Shabaab terrorist. Police said a woman escaped during his arrest.

Grant's home was described as a "bomb factory" by the prosecution after chemicals similar to those used in the July 7, 2005 London blast were found.

Lewthwaite's name has cropped up in other investigations and she was recently linked to British terror suspect Habib Ghani aka Osama al Britani, who was killed recently in Somalia after falling out with Al-Shabaab.

She remains the main suspect in a grenade attack at Jericho Beer Garden in Mombasa where three people died and over 30 were maimed.

Al-Shabaab spokesperson Mohammad Usman Arus, though, denied on BBC radio that any Briton, American or woman had taken part in the attack, saying: "We do not send our sisters out on missions."

The Sunday Mirror reported in September last year that detectives in South Africa were leading the hunt for Lewthwaite, whose South African passport bears the name Natalie Faye Webb. They were investigating claims she was hiding in central Kenya.

Chief of General Staff Julius Karangi on Monday said the army had "an idea who these people are but due to the sensitivity of the operation we will not divulge."
Link


Africa Horn
Germaine Lindsay's widow Samantha Lewthwaite: my role as a bomber's wife
2013-09-24
A British woman believed to be the widow of a July 7 bomber kept a diary in which she wrote that the wives of Muslim suicide bombers must be devoted, unquestioning and believe that life will be "sweeter in the hereafter", according to police.

Officers in Kenya found notes they believe were written by Samantha Lewthwaite, who is wanted in connection with a suspected terrorist plot. Alongside shopping lists and diet tips
Seriously? How quaint.
were details of how to live with a "mujihadeen".

Miss Lewthwaite, the former wife of Germaine Lindsay, who detonated the Russell Street Tube bomb that killed 26 innocent people, gave interviews after the London attacks in which she said the actions of her ex-husband and father of two of her children were "abhorrent".

Yet in the diary, she wrote that the "devoted" wife of a "mujihadeen" must realise that her "life in the hereafter promised to be sweeter" because of her husband's "sacrifice", said a police officer. The entry, written in a tatty A5 exercise book, added that such a wife must be "discrete" (sic), "obedient" and must understand that her husband's "calling" meant that both he and his wife would be cut off from their families.

The officer said he believed the exercise book was in the possession of Scotland Yard officers helping Kenyan police investigate a terrorist cell believed to include Lewthwaite and at least two other British jihadists. A woman whose picture in a fake South African passport closely resembles Lewthwaite is wanted by police over her alleged connections to a group planning attacks against Westerners in Kenya.

One alleged cell member, Jermaine Grant, from Newham, east London, has been charged with possessing materials with the intent to create a bomb.

During a raid on his flat in a rundown suburb of Mombasa, on Kenya's coast, police discovered chemicals similar to those used by the July 7 bombers.

There were strong links between Grant and Lewthwaite, it emerged on Monday, as police said that a house in an upmarket area of Mombasa was rented by Grant on behalf of Lewthwaite. His co-accused, Fouad Abubakr Manswab, was a close associate of a woman known to police only as Nassim, who was a friend to Lewthwaite and in whose house the diary was found. Nassim is the widow of Musa Hussein Abdi, an al-Qaeda agent killed in Mogadishu last year.

The day after Kenyan police arrested Grant and Manswab, they questioned Lewthwaite at Nassim's house and took copies of her passport, a fake in the name of Natalie Faye Webb. They did not arrest her because they believed she was an innocent tourist. When they returned the next day to ask to see her laptop, she had fled. Police then found the diary.

Police believe that the terrorist cell has 30 members and have been told that several bombs are "already out there" among "sympathisers" in Mombasa. They have been told that the targets include the United Nations headquarters in Nairobi and a shopping centre called Village Market that is popular with the capital's expatriates.

Police are also searching for a Kenyan associate of Lewthwaite's, thought to go by the name Abdi Wahid, who was pictured with her as they crossed from Tanzania to Kenya in August last year.
Link


Britain
Update on the Woolwich Attack: Soldier's 'Killer' In Dock On Terror Link Three Years Ago
2013-05-26
[Telegraph] One of the alleged killers of Drummer Lee Rigby appeared in court in Kenya suspected of leading a group of Islamists trying to join forces of Evil in Somalia.

The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that Michael Adebolajo was held by police close to the Somali border with a band of "radicalised" Moslem youths who wanted to join the notorious al-Shabaab
... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
group.

He was deported to Britannia after he appeared in court in Mombasa in November 2010.

Two months previously the head of MI5 had warned that Britons were training in Somalia and it was "only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside al-Shabaab". It also emerged that the other suspect in the soldier's murder, Michael Adebowale, 22, was tossed in the slammer
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
by police in London two months ago after shopkeepers complained about a group of Moslem activists.

The disclosures raise further questions about the monitoring by the security services of Adebowale and Adebolajo, 28, whom sources have said was known to MI5 but not assessed as a "threat to life".

o On Saturday night a further three men, aged 21, 24 and 28, were nabbed
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
in south-east London on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. Police used Tasers to detain two of them and were searching four addresses.

o Calls were made for Anjem Choudary, the leader of the al-Muhajiroun group to which Adebolajo has been closely linked, to be subject to a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure, the successor to control orders;

o Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, uses an article in The Sunday Telegraph to warn public bodies, including the police and judges, that it is time for them to bring the full weight of the law to bear on Death Eaters and not be hampered by political correctness;

o A leading historian who was a member of a Whitehall panel intended to tackle bad turban Moslem preaching at universities told how officials opened a "dialogue" with a body that seemed to endorse aspects of extremism;

o In what was feared to be a copycat attack in Gay Paree, a uniformed soldier was knifed in the throat by a man said to be "bearded and of North African origin", who was on the run on Saturday night. The soldier was badly hurt in the attack, which police were treating as a terrorist incident;

o The father of Damilola Taylor, the boy murdered in 2000 in south-east London, told how he had mentored Adebowale before the former gang member turned to radical Islam.

A report on MI5 and MI6's knowledge of and assessment of the two suspects will be given this week to MPs on the parliamentary committee that scrutinises the security services.

The Sunday Telegraph has established that Adebolajo was arrested by Kenyan authorities in the coastal town of Lamu, before being taken to Mombasa, where he was detained. He appeared in court in late November 2010 alongside other alleged Islamists. He and the others, who were said to age from 18 to 22, were remanded to a local cop shoppe. A court report at the time said he was a "Nigerian who had a British passport" and spelt his name incorrectly. Sources in the country confirmed his identity yesterday and said Adebolajo was subsequently deported. He later complained that he had been mistreated.

Adebolajo is understood to have said in court that he wanted access to legal services and to talk to the British Ambassador to Kenya. He also complained that the police said he was a Christian, when he was a converted Moslem.

"He was very arrogant, he was restrained and handcuffed very well," the source said. "We deported him back to the UK. When he was back in the UK he complained about us, that we tortured him. The British embassy in Nairobi wrote to us about the complaint, we told them that we did not torture him. I do not know if the letter arrived but that was what we wrote to them."

According to newspaper reports at the time, the group boarded a speedboat from Lamu Island to the village of Kizingitini before their arrest. Police suspected Adebolajo of criminal masterminding a plan for the youths to join al-Shabaab in Somalia. Pamphlets connected with al-Shabaab were recovered during the police operation.

The other youths who appeared with Adebolajo said they were recruited from a mosque in Mombasa by a radical imam. While in Lamu, they spent time at an isolated madrassa. Lamu, 68 miles from the Somali border, is considered the key crossing point to the country and is a major area of operations for Kenyan security forces.

The case raises questions about why Adebolajo was not put under greater surveillance or even prosecuted after his deportation from Kenya. Under the Terrorism Act 2006, it is an offence to travel or intend to travel overseas to commit acts of terrorism or take part in terrorist training.

Evidence from the Kenyan authorities could have been used to prosecute Adebolajo.

Several Britons have been convicted of similar offences, including the white Moslem convert Richard Dart and his co-defendants earlier this year. They admitted planning to travel to Pakistain to seek terrorist training, and had discussed attacking the military-supporting town of Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire.

Kenyan police believe that Jermaine Grant, a Briton who is on trial in Mombasa on charges of possessing explosives and planning an attack in the port city, has links to al-Shabaab. Grant's alleged accomplice Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of the 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay, is on the run after slipping a police dragnet. Some reports suggest she may have crossed the border into Somalia.

Jonathan Evans, the then head of MI5, warned in September 2010 that a "significant number of UK residents" were training with al-Shabaab. At the time security services said Somalia was the most significant destination for foreign jihadis. The Foreign Office said of Adebolajo's arrest and deportation: "We do not comment on individual cases."

The arrest of the other suspect, Adebowale, two months ago in London, followed complaints from shopkeepers about the activities of bad turban Moslems, sources said.

More details of his life were disclosed by Damilola Taylor's father, Richard, who recalled how he tried to mentor the suspect when he was younger.

Mr Taylor is Nigerian-born while both suspects are of Nigerian descent. He said: "He [Adebowale] was a young lovable boy, quiet. Suddenly I started hearing that he's getting involved in issues around gangs and drugs and I was not very happy with that. I'm terribly shocked."

The murder of Drummer Rigby has caused concern on several levels across Whitehall, highlighting apparent failures to rein in bad turban preaching and the radicalisation of young Moslem men. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph today, Mr Pickles urges politicians, judges and the public sector to take a robust line against bad turbans.

"Our laws are there to ensure preachers of hate are not given a licence to incite violence or public disorder," he writes. "And the police and judiciary should use their powers when the line has been crossed."

He urges members of the public not to "stand idly by" and for broadcasters not to give fanatics the oxygen of publicity. Local authorities should not give taxpayers' money to organizations that promote segregation or shelter bad turbans, he adds.

A senior academic who advised the Government on combating Moslem extremism in British universities today condemns the showpiece counter-terrorism strategy as a "sad shambles".

Professor Michael Burleigh, a research fellow in modern history and the history of terrorism at Buckingham University, was invited to take part in a Home Office and Department for Business advisory group two years ago, which helped update the £63 million-a-year "Prevent" strategy.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph today, Prof Burleigh says civil servants in charge of the "entrenched bureaucracy" worked to undermine the experts and even met with one Islamic group that he regarded as "the main problem".

Prevent was set up under the Labour government in 2005 after the London bombings of July 7. After the last general election, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, commissioned a review because she regarded it as highly flawed, and was critical of the higher education sector's "complacency" in dealing with the Islamists on campus. She later admitted that Prevent had handed taxpayers' money to hard-line Moslem groups that promote bad turban views.

One senior counter-terrorism source said: "Would a university allow someone to speak on campus if they were advocating the best way to be a paedophile or an armed robber? No, they would not. But they allow speakers who advocate terrorism."

Greenwich University last night began an investigation into radicalism on its premises after confirming that the older suspect had been a student there.

Research by Student Rights, a group set up to tackle extremism on campus, found that radical Islamist preachers addressed students at 200 official events in the 12 months to March 2013, including at Greenwich.

In February its Islamic society invited Dr Khalid Fikry, who has given speeches in which he appears to suggest that Shia Moslems believe "raping a Sunni woman is a matter that pleases Allah" and stated that "Shia are one of the worst and greatest enemies of our Ummah (community) nowadays". Most recently he spoke at the University of Westminster's Islamic Society.

University Islamic societies are grouped under the umbrella of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis). It has hosted bad turban speakers including Azzam Tamimi, who supports the Paleostinian group Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and has spoken in support of martyrdom, and Haitham al-Haddad, who believes that music is a "prohibited and fake message of love and peace". Fosis has been criticised by Mrs May and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, for its failure to "fully challenge terrorist and bad turban ideology".

Its chairman, Omar Ali, said last night: "There has been no investigation or inquiry that has identified a link between the activities of Islamic Societies and acts of terrorism. There's no evidence to suggest there is more extremism on university campuses than in any other sector of society."

The murder in Woolwich, south-east London, has led to calls for internet companies to take down bad turban material from the web, but those were rejected by Google
...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign...
. Speaking at the Telegraph Hay Festival yesterday, Eric Schmidt, its executive chairman, said the company had no plans to change its policy.

"We cannot prima facie identify it and take it down. It establishes censorship as a slippery slope; where do we stop?" he said.
Link



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