Tuesday, June 16, 2015
KENYAN Military Intelligence had tracked the al Shabaab militiamen killed on Sunday morning for over four months, after finding out that they had sneaked back into the country, the Star has established.
The Star exclusively reported on May 29, 2015, that Luqman Osman Issa and his gang of terrorists had sneaked into Kenya and were planning attacks.
Intelligence reports indicate that Issa, aka Shiriwa, was the leader of a gang that sneaked into the country sometime in February and had been hiding with his group in Boni Forest as they prepared for a Mpeketoni-like attack. The revelation comes as four suspected al Shabaab fighters who escaped from the Sunday morning incident were shot and killed in Boni Forest on Sunday afternoon, shortly after 12 others had been killed.
Issa is reported to have been the leader of the June 2014 Mpeketoni attack and a brother of another terror suspect implicated in the 2002 Kikambala attack and currently serving a sentence in Sudan. Another of the suspects killed in the Sunday morning attack on a military base is suspected to be British-born Thomas Evans, aka Abdul Hakim.
They had been planning attacks to avenge the killing of the group’s external operations boss, Dan Garar, and were holed up in the port of Kuday in Southern Somalia. They escaped into Kenya after Amisom and Somalia National Army troops liberated Kuday and the islands of Mdoa and Dagazi last week.
The group, most of them of them Kenyan, are believed to be an al Shabaab offshoot that escaped into Boni Forest and is attempting to enter either Lamu, Malindi or Kwale. The group was led by Issa, who goes by the aliases Deere and Shirwa. The group is said to be in the Lakta Belt in Boni Forest.
Issa is believed to be responsible for a spate of attacks on Kenya Defence Forces troops and civilians in Kenya and Somalia’s Lower Juba area. “The al Shabaab militia in Boni Forest have been responsible for a spate of attacks against KDF convoys and Coastal civilians.
The militia in Boni Forest comprises largely militants from Coast, including Lamu, Malindi and Mombasa,” an Intelligence report says. The report, compiled last week, reveals that the families of communities at the Coast have appealed to the government to assist them to bring back their sons, brothers and fathers who have been lured by al Shabaab to carry out attacks.