In Shabaab kidnapper gangs – Daily Nation

In November 2008, the commander of Al-Shabaab, Mohamed Toora-Toorow, accompanied by 24 men, left Somalia at 11 pm and walked several kilometers to Kenya.

Its mission was to abduct two Italian nuns: 67-year-old Maria Teresa Olivero and 60-year-old Caterina Giraudo, who were employed as aid workers in El Wak, a town in Mandera County on the border. with Somalia. The kidnapping was to take place near an advanced operations base of the Kenya Defense Force (KDF) in El Wak.

"Toora-Toorow divided his 24 men into four groups: one to kidnap the nuns, one to monitor the barracks, one to divert vehicles to a hotel and the other to secure the escape routes," write Harun Maruf. and Dan Joseph. Book 2018 Inside Al-Shabaab: The story of the most powerful ally of al-Qaeda.

The book provides an insider account of how al Shabaab terrorists conduct their heinous operations, including kidnappings and ransoms.

"The first unit took the women out of their homes. Then, after Shabaab and the soldiers exchanged fire in the barracks, the four groups opened fire, "the book says.

In the confusion, they write, the group at the hotel hijacked two vans and a Land Rover. The Shabaab team converged, crammed into vehicles with the nuns and returned to Somalia.

"Fighter on the muddy roads, traveling only at night to thwart Kenyan air strikes, they arrived in Mogadishu two days later," the book says of the long journey into the terrorist cache at a time when they controlled the capital.

This was the scenario when Al-Shabaab militants staged a daylight attack on the Gerilla Administration police camp in January 2012, where they took a Burderi district officer, Edward, into captivity. Yesse Mule.

According to Maruf and Joseph's book, the planning of the nuns' rapture, which became the first major Al Shabaab operation in Kenya, lasted two months.

Years later, when Mr. Maruf interviewed Toora-Toorow in 2015, the terrorist told the Voice of America reporter that the nuns had been redeemed for 1.5 million shillings (150 million shillings).

The activist died during a bomb attack at a hotel in Mogadishu in February 2015.

The account provides an overview of al-Shabaab kidnapping machinery that has targeted civilians and soldiers over the last decade.

While kidnappings inside Kenya are rare, the narrative exposes the dark world of kidnappings and hostage negotiations. Terrorists, who are supposed to carefully identify their victims after monitoring their movements, use kidnappings to propagandize and make money. They prefer counties in the northeast and on the coasts of Somalia, where it is easy to pbad through this war-torn country.

This comes as the search for the two Cuban doctors kidnapped by suspected terrorists in Mandera on Friday intensified yesterday. (see separate story).

After the abduction of the Italian nuns, al-Shabaab gunmen attacked the British couple David and Judith Tebbutt who were staying in a luxurious cottage, the Kiwayu Safari complex in Lamu.

Mr. Tebutt was killed while fighting the fighters while his wife was kidnapped and taken by boat to Somalia.

British and US intelligence agencies said Kahale Famau Khale, aka Abdul Ghafur Ahmed, a Kenyan commander in Somalia al Shabaab, had hinted that Kenyans had been kidnapped.

"Khale has already expressed the wish to kidnap Westerners to Lamu. Between 9 and 10 September, Khale was reportedly located in Ras Kamboni, near the Kenya-Somalia border, "reads a heavily drafted British M16 document.

Ms. Tebbutt spent six months in captivity before being released for a $ 1.1 million ransom.

However, then-British Prime Minister David Cameron said his government was not paying ransom money to guarantee his freedom.

According to the British Intelligence Service, in February 2011, Khale allegedly badigned "al-Shaaab badociates to monitor the cruises around the Lamu Archipelago with the intention of kidnapping Western tourists to preserve them. against ransom in Somalia ".

Prior to this September 2011 raid, Kenyan security agents had foiled an al-Shabaab attack against Westerners at the Kiwayu Safari Village complex.

"A group of al Shabaab fighters had planned to target women from the Kiwayu Safari Village complex, saying they would weaken in captivity and speed up the payment of ransom," the services said. information.

Like most of the al-Shabaab commanders who carried out kidnappings in Kenya, Khale was an badociate member of the late al Qaeda Saleh Nabhan. He was among the first Kenyan recruiters to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabaab.

Mule would spend 546 days in Shabaab captivity and was released as a result of the determined efforts of his father, Yesse Mule, who documented the entire case in a book published in February, Let My People Go.

"There is a complex web of deception, an open avidity for political power and an insatiable thirst for rapid wealth, regardless of the price offered by competing interests in Kenya and Somalia," he said. Mr. Mule said that he had not paid the ransom for his son.

US and British intelligence agencies said the Kenyan coast and the Somali border were being used as facilitators for Al-Shabaab to transport people and goods across the border.

The intelligence files were released as part of Al Jazeera's "The Spy Cables" and The Guardian, a leak of hundreds of secret intelligence documents from agencies around the world.

On March 21, 2013, Kenya's National Intelligence Service, in a confidential statement, had warned that al-Shabaab agents, through Amniyat's (intelligence unit) and al-Shabaab suicide bombing), planned to carry out kidnappings targeting Western nationals from northeastern Kenya.

In order to support the kidnappings, al-Shabaab would have spies composed of Kenyans and Somalis operating in the country.

Since 2008, al-Shabaab militants have carried out several kidnappings of residents and strangers in Kenya. Even before the Cuban kidnap, the security forces were looking for Italian aid worker Silvia Constanca Romano, abducted by gunmen in Kilifi last November. Little progress has been reported.

And in July 2017, during a bold raid, Shabaab militants kidnapped the main secretary of Public Works, Marya Mariam El Maawy, while she was visiting families in the Boni Forest during the summer. 39, an inspection of the Lapsset project.

Activists blocked the PS convoy in Milihoi between Koreni and Hindi, about 40 kilometers northeast of Mpeketoni.

International humanitarian workers

Although the KDF's special forces rescued her 45 minutes later after her abduction, the attack left her with a bullet lodged in her left shoulder and burns in her legs. She died three months later in South Africa where she was being treated, becoming the highest official in the government to die in an al-Shabaab attack.

In February 2016, Somali forces rescued a Kenyan businessman, James Gashamba, held hostage by suspected pirates and armed men of al-Shabaab for 15 months.

In June 2012, four aid workers from Canada, Pakistan, Norway and the Philippines were abducted in the sprawling refugee camp at Dadaab. They were rescued a month later in Somali by soldiers from the KDF and the Somali National Army.

Two Spanish nationals working for a non-governmental organization (NGO) were also abducted in Dadaab in October 2011. They were subsequently released on 18 July 2013.

Using kidnappings as a pretext, Kenya has sent about 2,500 troops to Somalia, the highest government officials portraying the incursion in response to the kidnappings.