Friday September 3, 2021
Tanzanian
police said on Thursday that a slain gunman who killed three police
officers and a private security guard on a rampage through a diplomatic
quarter of Tanzania's main city Dar es Salaam last month was a
terrorist.
In
the Aug. 25 attack, Hamza Mohammed shot police officers with a pistol
at a city intersection before taking their rifles and heading to the
nearby French embassy where he shot the security guard. Hamza was
eventually shot dead. read more
"Our
investigation has found that Hamza was a terrorist," Camilius Wambura,
Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI), told reporters in the lake
city of Mwanza.
The
gunman had been accessing extremist content from social media pages
depicting terror acts by Islamist groups al Shabaab and ISIS, Wambura
said.
Al
Shabaab is an Islamist group that has for years been fighting to topple
the government in Somalia and seeking to establish its own rule based
on its own strict interpretation of Islam's sharia law.
The
gunman was also in communication "with other people who live in
countries with terrorism-related acts but mainly he was learning through
radical social media pages," Wambura said.
Tanzania's
Inspector-General of Police Simon Sirro last week suggested the attack
could be related to Tanzania's role in neighbouring Mozambique, where
the country has sent troops to help fight Islamist insurgents as part of
a regional security force.
Wambura
said Mohammed was one of "a type of terrorists who are ready to die for
their religion," although he did not name any religion.
Venance
Kalunga, a neighbour of the gunman, told Reuters last week that
Mohammed had lived peacefully in their residential area in the east of
the city but described him as devoted to his Islamic faith.
"He is a very ethical man who follows Islamic teachings...he loves going to the mosque in the morning, afternoon and evening."