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| Africa: Horn |
| Fazul plotted further attacks in Kenya |
| 2004-11-28 |
| A single mobile phone interception by elite Kenyan anti-terrorism police saved the nation from what would have been one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in recent history, we can reveal today. Exactly two years after a terrorist's truck rammed into the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, The Sunday Standard unveils a special report on terrorism and reveals insights into the activities of the East African Al Qaeda cell led by the most wanted man in Africa — Fazul Abdullahi Mohammed — mastermind of both the Paradise and August 7, 1998, US embassy bombings and a wanted fugitive with a $25 million (Sh2 billion) bounty on his head. His Al Qaeda cell, we can reveal, had plotted a further double bombing assault on Nairobi which, had it succeeded, would have been the most spectacular on Kenyan soil ever. We further reveal insights into the investigation into the Paradise Hotel atrocity and detail how investigators into the attack broke the case, thanks to valuable clues gleaned from the communication records of a single mobile phone number, which additionally lifted a lid on the insidious activities of the East African terror cell. For the first time since the plot to simultaneously set off two bombs in Nairobi was scuttled by elite Kenyan police, we outline the Kenya government's efforts to transform the country's security apparatus into a modern unit with a unified prosecution, investigation and intelligence structure, capable of confronting the threat of terrorism and shielding the country from further outrages by Osama bin Laden's network of terror targeting Western interests. The plot to bomb the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the attack on Paradise Hotel four years later all followed a similar plan, according to detailed investigations into the attacks by Kenyan and international security agencies. The attackers all appear to have begun their plans in the south of Somalia, in the Kiamboni area, which local and international intelligence sources interviewed by The Sunday Standard believe is a stronghold and training base for foreign Arabs linked to Al Qaeda. With a few months to go before execution of their plots, the attackers then deftly moved into the ancient communities scattered around islands near the Lamu archipelago on the Kenyan coast and seamlessly gelled in. They married local girls and established themselves as devout Muslims, all the while keeping up communication with their external Al Qaeda cells in readiness for the actual attack. Last week, The Sunday Standard visited the tiny remote Island of Siyu where Fazul Abdullahi Mohammed, operating under the alias Abdul Karim, lived for close to a year while plotting attacks against Western interests in Kenya. Fazul is on the list of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation top ten most wanted men. The island, which is only about an hour's ride by speedboat from Somalia is an impoverished, remote and desolate ancient settlement of about 1,500 people, all Muslim, and provided a perfect platform for Fazul to plot his murderous campaign. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |