Reformed Al Shabaab militant is shot dead

Former Jihadist Subira Sudi Mwangole who was shot dead in Kwale County on Thursday evening. Three months ago, Sudi and 25 other militants surrendered to police after renouncing terrorism and Alshabab. He joined Al Shabab in 2008 and went to Somalia for training and returned to Kenya the following year. May 13 2016. Photo by Tobias Chanji/Standard

An Islamist militant who surrendered to government authorities in Kwale following an amnesty in February this year, has been shot dead.

Security sources have accused Al Shabaab agents of executing the former accomplice, apparently for leaving the group last year following the April 2 terrorist massacre in Garissa University College last year. The victim was buried at a local cemetery amid fears that his murder will dissuade militants from surrendering.

On February 23, The Standard reported Subira Sudi Mwangole’s surrender to Kenyan authorities at Matuga School of Government a day earlier.

Mwangole told this reporter that he received military training as a foreign fighter under Al Shabaab in Somalia and returned to Kenya after being recruited into the terrorist group by Hassan Suleiman Mwayuyu and Hassan Bakari, who were killed several years ago by suspected State anti-terror agents.

State amnesty

He was received at the school by Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho, who alleged that about 1,500 militants had surrendered to a State amnesty declared last year.

Mwangole was among the 19 youths, including five women unveiled by Mr Kibicho, who said they were part of a group of 48 former radicals and extremists who surrendered and had undergone government-sponsored de-radicalisation and rehabilitation programmes.

During the interview, Mwangole said a number of militants he trained with still lurk around Kwale and tried to kill him last year when they saw him at the home of a local chief. Reports indicate that Mwangole was at his brother’s house in Shamu village watching the evening news on Thursday when a gang of about 10 people armed with an AK 47 stormed the house at around 7.20pm and shot him, injuring two others.

“They tried to enter the house by force but were repulsed by the people inside. They then went ahead and shot at Ali Suleiman, injuring both his legs while the same ammunition got Ali Abdallah Mwakulunda,” said Msambweni OCPD Joseph Omijah yesterday.

After the first shooting the attackers pressed into the house and shot Mwangole twice in the head and took away the motorcycle given to him by the State when he surrendered at Kwale School of Government last year.

“They saw me at the chief’s office and came to my house at midnight fully armed, wanting to know what I had gone to do there. I told them the issue was personal. They warned me and disappeared,” Mwangole told The Standard last year.

He said there were five people involved in recruitment of local youths to Al Shabaab, including Mwayuyu and Bakari, adding that some were still alive and many people lived in fear.

Mwangole said he and other local male youth and Tanzanian Muslims entered Somalia in July 2008 after recruitment, and that they were heavily influenced by the preaching and ideology of radical Islamist and Jihadist Sheikh Aboud Rogo who, was killed in Mombasa in August 2012.

He said Mwayuyu and Bakari introduced them to Rogo’s thinking and call to Jihadi in Somalia through literature and recorded speeches.

“We were put in clusters of five people that also included Tanzanians. We then travelled by public means to Kilifi then Malindi before proceeding to Lamu, where a private car (Pajero) would pick us at night,” he said.

Bribed police

“On the journey to Somalia, we were picked by different people at various stages. The entire journey took about five days,” he said. Mwangole claimed there were “more than 600” Kenyan Al Shabaab fighters in Somalia while he was there for a year and a half, and that some Kenyans went there with their families.

He said he and other militants bribed Kenyan police at the border to slip back into Kenya. He also said dozens of militants slipped back into Kenya after training by using boats and lorries, and that others slipped in with firearms.

Before his death, Mwangole said some of the most dangerous terrorists are still alive and active in Kwale, and are in constant communication with Al Shabaab in Somalia.

He confessed that these were responsible for the dozens of attacks in the coast region in recent years.

Mwagole revealed there were about five active Al Shabaab cells of between two to five members in Kwale. “The cells do not stay together and even they do not know where other cells are because you cannot trust anyone,” he said. Police in Kwale are now concerned that with this shooting, other returnees will be scared to surrender.