Monday, April 16, 2012

Confessions of a Kenyan Al Shabaab militant


By CYRUS OMBATI
A former Al Shabaab militant has confessed how he joined and fought alongside the Somali insurgents.
Abdullah Adbul Majid aka Abul, a Kenyan aged 18 and who arrived from Somalia in January, is in police custody after he was arrested last week in connection with the Machakos Country Bus blasts that killed nine people.
An interrogation report seen by The Standard details his confessions from how he joined the terror group and his military training in Somalia.
He was arrested in Eastleigh last Thursday together with three people following a tip-off that they were involved in the blasts.
Abdul said he travelled to Somalia in January, last year, from Mombasa through Garissa, Dadajabula and Dobley towns.
"He secured his bus fare to Somalia by secretly selling his mother’s mobile phone at Sh5,000. He packed a few clothes in a paper bag to begin the journey to Somalia," says part of the report.
Abdul is a Standard Seven dropout from Ahzab Academy and his parents stay in Majengo, Mombasa.
He has told police he was motivated to join the militants by teachings in a Mombasa mosque by two Sheikhs including deceased Samir Mohamed Khan who was found dead in Tsavo National Park.
The preachers, according to the report, told their followers the war in Somalia is a real Jihad after Uganda and Burundi soldiers joined the Transitional Federal Government soldiers in fighting the Al Shabaab militants.
The report says some sailors at the Mombasa old port advised Abdul how he could travel to Somalia. While in Somalia, he was inducted in using grenades, pistols and rifles at Abadajira, which is a former prisons camp.
It was a three-month course involving about 300 trainees. He remained in Mogadishu while his colleagues were taken to Quri Luk.
He revealed that foreign fighters found speaking in English were slaughtered on the spot because they were assumed to be spies.
Other foreign fighters are usually killed by the militants’ leaders for allegedly raping women, which according to Abdul, did not please him.
Never visited mother
He told interrogators he came back to Kenya in January because he missed his mother. But police say the claim is false because he has never gone to Mombasa to visit his mother or seen her since he arrived in Kenya.
The mother confirmed on phone she has never talked to her son since he left for Somalia.
Police are now monitoring the suspect following intelligence reports that he and others were planning to commit a serious crime.
Another suspect arrested alongside Abdul was taken to court last week and pleaded guilty to being in the country illegally while two others were released and ordered to report to Anti-Terror Police Unit tomorrow.
More security personnel have been sent to the Coast to mount surveillance following more reports of a possible attack.

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