Kenyan Soldiers gun down five suspects over Mpeketoni attack

NAIROBI (KON)-Five people were shot dead Thursday on suspicion that they were among the attackers who massacred villagers in Mpeketoni.
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Kenyan Soldiers gun down five suspects over Mpeketoni attack

Kenyan soldiers patrolling Bodhei area in Lamu County encountered the five early in the morning, according to the Department of Defence.

Three AK 47 riffles were seized from the men.

Contingents of General Service Unit officers are combing the area for the Sunday and Monday night raiders.

The five men on the run were killed in a confrontation with the Kenyan security team that was hunting them down. They were shot dead at Bodhei in Lamu, an area that was being patrolled by units of the General Service Unit and the Kenya Defence Forces.

The shooting took place as President Kenyatta met lawmakers from the Coast and agreed on the need to preach peace and reconciliation. He will accompany the MPs and Senators on their tours of some of the counties.

Interior Principal Secretary Mutea Iringo confirmed that the five who were shot dead were part of the gang that raided Mpeketoni on Sunday night and Maporomokoni the following day, killing 58 people.

“Some of the survivors were able to identify some of those who attacked them. Some were even calling the victims by name and demanding they escort them to other targets,” he said.

Detectives were given registration number plates of some vehicles used by the attackers and their owners are being tracked down.

Director of Criminal Investigations Ndegwa Muhoro said only the driver of the vehicle used by the assailants is being held in Lamu and that the others had been released.

He said: “We can’t continue to hold them for now but they are aware they should be available whenever we need them. We have only been left with the driver. Investigations are going on well.”

At the same time, police announced that they had received crucial information after interrogating a man from whom the attackers took one of the vehicles.

A conductor on a bus run by Pwani Tawakal Mini Coach told reporters in Mombasa last Tuesday that they were on the road to Mpeketoni when they found the driver by the road. 

The driver, identified as Dyana, told them he was stopped while driving his 14-seater van, beaten and his clothes and money taken. He said he saw a driver in another van killed after he refused to surrender his vehicle.

The bus crew then turned around and went back after being warned that there was trouble ahead in Mpeketoni.

At the same time, two more bodies were recovered yesterday and the victims identified by the police as two brothers who were carjacked by the assailants.

And anti-terrorism detectives interrogated a man they linked to internet messages that were modelled to pass for official announcements by Somalia terrorist group Al-Shabaab, claiming responsibility.

Mr Ismail Omondi was being interrogated in connection with the Twitter account in which over 3,000 text as well as photo and video messages were posted.

The government maintains the attack was ethnically and politically motivated.

Officers from the National Intelligence Service, the Anti-terrorism police and cyber crime experts, with help of Internet Service providers and mobile phone services providers tracked the man to Majengo area of Nairobi.

He was freed yesterday without charges.

The Associated Press, however, quoted an Al-Shabaab source said to have spoken at Radio Andalus, ran by the terrorists in Somalia, claiming responsibility.

Gory pictures of the massacre were posted in the account which has been existent since 2011.

Other postings made fun of President Kenyatta and Interior CS Joseph Lenku.

Daily Nation

 

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