Terrorist with rage against the Kenyan State finally killed

A building at the Garissa University with a bullet-riddled wall. Mohamed Kuno, who is believed to have planned an attack at the college in which 147 people died, was killed in Somalia on 1/06/16. (PHOTO: FILE/ STANDARD)

Following reports that Mohamed Kuno Dulyadiin alias Gamadheere has been killed in Somalia, a village in Bura township in Garissa County will now have some kind of closure.

Close family members, including several Muslim leaders, relatives and even an MP have suffered at the hands of anti-terrorist police for receiving random telephone calls from Kuno.

Kuno has been on the most-wanted list for close to a year after Kenyan authorities blamed him for the April 2, 2015, attack at Garissa University College, which was claimed by Al Shabaab.

Kuno, who also went by the name Sheikh Mohamed Muhumed Ali, was a member of Al Shabaab and a fugitive from justice for other crimes in Garissa and Lamu counties, according to Kenyan authorities.

The slain fugitive’s flight from Bulla Iftin in Garissa town where he lived with his family for years after returning from university studies in Sudan in the late 1980s or early 1990s, has been a matter of splendid and sordid gossip and conspiracy theories.

But many of his relatives have suffered, often, wrongly for receiving calls from him.

For years, Kuno taught at Najah Islamic School in Garissa town and also delivered fiery sermons supporting violent jihad at several mosques in Bulla Iftin. Given to fiery temper, he is said to have cancelled his wedding to a bride from Nanighi after she allegedly insulted his parents and family. For embarrassing his family in this manner, Kuno was reportedly cursed by local elders.

Birthday unknown

Kuno’s date of birth is not known but many sources indicate he was born in Bura town over 50 years ago and received his education in local Islamic schools before ending up in Sudan in the 1980s.

He hailed from the Rer Qassim sub-clan, Rer Abdille Aden sub-sub clan of the Abduwak clan which dominates Fafi constituency.

Although he enjoyed traditional dances as a child, reports say he grew more austere and rebellious as time passed, eventually choosing a religious career.

“He was defiant since his teenage (years) and is known to have beaten up his bride-to-be and refused to tie the knot at the last hour,” according a civil servant in Garissa who knew Kuno before he disappeared.

The civil servant, who cannot be named for security reasons, further describes Kuno as a “a brave teacher who kept to himself” upon returning from Sudan.

The date of Kuno’s flight from Garissa into Somalia or the short and long-term reasons for his departure are also contested in Garissa and within intelligence circles.

Kenya’s intelligence claims to have placed him under its watch as early as 2008 through to 2012, when he allegedly entered Somalia and sneaked back to Kenya many times.

Some accounts suggest he fled his teaching post at Najah Islamic School in Garissa in the mid 1990s to join the defunct Al Ittihad Al Islam in Somalia, the precursor to the Islamic Courts Union, which morphed into the Al Shabaab following an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December 2006.

Yet one account suggests that after his return from Sudan, Kuno appeared to harbour a deep sense of grievances against the Kenyan State.

In his sermons in mosques in Bulla Iftin, Kuno is said to have delivered incendiary separatist sermons against the Kenyan and Ethiopian States over their joint treatment of Somalia.

And some accounts indicate that Kuno might not have been the first person to join Somalia-based extremist movements. Those who knew Kuno allege he was deeply hurt when an unnamed brother or cousin was killed fighting Ethiopian forces inside Somalia in 2008.

Kuno is suspected to have plunged headlong into the jihadi movement after this incident, taking away his entire family to settle in Jilib town on Somalia’s southern coast.

Within Garissa, Kuno hated local leaders within the Ogaden religious and political elite who included some relatives, accusing them of supporting Kenya’s military invasion of Somalia. To pay back, he made calls to them from his Jilib hideout in order to set them up.

The fugitive is believed to have visited Kenya several times, including Garissa town, where his close relatives still live, to plan and conduct missions. His allies in these acts were a Mr Mohamed Amin, an ethnic Abdalla fugitive from Ijara and a Mohamed Bilal who are still at large.

He underwent military and ideological training in Kismayu but also among ethnic Marehan islamist in Gedo region who would later order the university college attack. The college attack was orchestrated by Kuno’s network in Garissa County.

Two allies

Bilal was suspected to have masterminded the May 19, 2015, takeover of two villages in Ijara sub-county, which was blamed on Kuno, who was believed to have ordered the attack from Kulbiyow town inside Somalia.

The two allies of Kuno’s would be blamed for the attacks on Kenyan soldiers and policemen that began in southern Garissa in May last year, spreading southwards into Lamu County where Kuno had some links with Jaysh Ayman, an Al Shabaab offshoot in Coast blamed for most recent attacks in Lamu County since June 2014.

Before the university college attack, Kenya’s intelligence had claimed he had sneaked into Kenya through Masalani many times.

Before the September 2013 Westgate Mall attack, Kuno secretly visited Bulla Iftin through Masalani in Ijara sub-county, according to Kenya police.

On December 17, 2012, the National Security Intelligence published a report about Kuno, claiming he had entered Kenya through Masalani in Ijara sub county of Garissa on December 9 of the same year to plot terrorist attacks in Mombasa and Nairobi.

AVENGE MURDER

Before the university college attack, Kuno appears to have crossed into Kenya or sent operatives from Kuda town that had recently been captured by Kenya’s military forces to avenge the unexplained murder of Sheikh Mohamed Ali Kheir alias Dawara, a close relative and ideological soulmate who was abducted in Garissa late December 2014 and found killed in Embu after several days.

He sought to avenge this death and pay back any Kenyan Somali leaders who supported the so called Jubaland Project. The Jubaland Project refers to Kenya’s efforts to create a self-governing region in Southern Somalia or Jubaland occupied by the Kenya Defence Forces.

A fluent Arabic speaker, Kuno was mostly based in Kismayo and also Kuda towns in Southern Somalia before these towns were captured by Kenya’s military and its allies. He appeared several times on Pan Arab TV media, railing against alleged anti-Muslim atrocities by Kenya and Western governments.