Nairobi, Kenya: The hunt for Kenya’s most wanted terrorist, Abdukadir Mohammed Abdukadir, alias Ikrima, has gone a notch higher with the US government placing a $9 million (Sh779.4 million) bounty on his head alongside two other men. Ikrima is being sought alongside the two who have been identified as Jafar and Yasin Kilwe. Both are said to be based in Somalia and responsible for terror activities in the East African region. The bounty was announced on Thursday in a statement from the US State Department. The American government said it was authorising “rewards of up to $3 million (Sh259.95 million) each for information leading to the arrest of Abdukadir Mohammed Abdukadir alias Ikrima, Jafar and Yasin Kilwe”. Ikrima is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the September 21, 2013 Westgate Mall terrorist attack, with calls made by terrorists from the besieged mall going to contacts in Uganda and to Ikrima in Somalia. Very little was known about who the Westgate attackers were calling outside the borders of Kenya until the early hours of Saturday October 5, 2013, when teams of Navy Seals from Seal Team 6 arrived on the Somali shoreline under the cover of darkness. The teams were flanked by additional Seals in three small boats and air support, implying that the man they were after was not an ordinary terrorist but a most wanted man. Pentagon Press secretary George Little told the media then that the operation targeted Ikrima, a Kenyan living in a fortified seaside compound in the Somali town of Barawe. Now intelligence officers, security experts, Somalis, friends and former Al-Shabaab members who spoke to The Standard on Saturday have painted a clear portrait of the man being sought by several nations. Ikrima is the man believed to have planned the Westgate Mall attack. The US government has described Ikrima as having “medium-length hair and has worn a thick moustache,” with “missing three fingers on his left hand”. On the morning of the attack in Barawe last October, security sources said the Seals could see Ikrima through the windows of his compound, but could not get to him, as he was protected by dozens of fighters, women and children. The operation failed to capture him but cemented the small- figured boy who grew up to become a cold-blooded killer as one of America’s most wanted terrorists. US intelligence have linked Ikrima to Harun Fazul and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, two Al-Qaeda operatives now deceased, who played key roles in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 attacks against Israel targets in Mombasa.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 05:45:59 +0000
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