By TOM ODULA and JASON STRAZIUSO / Associated Press / April 1, 2014
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A radical Islamic leader who had been sanctioned by
the United States and the United Nations for supporting an al-Qaida-linked
Somali militant group was assassinated late Tuesday, his lawyer and
officials said.
The killing by unknown gunmen came as the Kenyan government announced it
had begun an operation to stop a wave of attacks in the country as
authorities arrested more than 650 people in Nairobi following a bomb
attack Monday.
Attorney Mbugua Mureithi said Abubakar Shariff Ahmed was shot dead along
with another unidentified man near the Shimo la Tewa prison in the coastal
town of Mombasa. The killings threaten to spark retaliatory violence.
Ahmed's death is the latest to hit the Masjid Shuhadaa Mosque, which
officials call an incubator of terrorism. Sheik Aboud Rogo Mohammed -- a
friend of Ahmed's -- was assassinated in August 2012. A year later another
mosque leader was killed. There have been no arrests in either case.
Mohammed had been sanctioned by the U.S. and U.N. for allegedly supporting
al-Shabab, which has vowed to carry out terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil to
avenge Kenya's sending of troops to Somalia.
Following the first two killings, Ahmed, also known as Makaburi, told The
Associated Press in October that he believed he was marked for death.
''I'm living on borrowed time. The same guy who ordered Aboud Rogo's death
is going to order mine,'' Ahmed said.
Ahmed had clear links with al-Shabab, said Matt Bryden, the former head of
the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea and a top expert
on al-Shabab. Bryden said Ahmed's death may cause the militant group to
plan retaliatory attacks against Kenya.
Ahmed had often said he was in danger of being killed by security agents,
Mureithi said. He said Ahmed started making those claims soon after he and
Mohammed were nearly abducted outside a court building in Nairobi in July
2012.
Mureithi said Ahmed's last interview with a local TV station in which he
appeared to justify the killings of civilians during the September
terrorist attack on an upscale mall in Nairobi may have contributed to his
death.
Riots broke out in Mombasa after Mohammed was killed in August 2012 and
after Sheik Ibrahim Ismael was killed in October. Ahmed was charged with
inciting violence.
Kenya is still on edge following the September attack on Nairobi's Westgate
Mall that killed at least 67 people. Since then al-Shabab sympathizers have
been blamed for an explosion at Nairobi's main airport, a grenade attack on
tourists on Kenya's coast, a blast on a bus in Nairobi, and three blasts
Monday night in the capital that killed six people.
Authorities said Tuesday they had arrested 657 people following the latest
attack. Kenya frequently makes mass arrests after attacks only to release
nearly all of those arrested.
Last month, police on the coast discovered a car bomb packed with
explosives that a police official has said was meant to target a shopping
mall. Later in the month gunmen killed six people in a church outside
Mombasa.
A senior Kenyan security official said that security agencies believe a
large scale attack is imminent. He said because police foiled the planned
car bomb in Mombasa, terrorists are more determined to carry out another.
Bryan N. Kahumbura, a Horn of Africa analyst with the International Crisis
group, said a mix of issues is fueling the escalation of attacks.
The disappearances and executions of Muslim youth suspected of having links
to terror are angering the Kenyan Muslim community, Kahumbura said. Many
Muslims feel they are being profiled by police, he said.
Received on Tue Apr 01 2014 - 22:34:13 EDT