How terror agent escaped arrest

By Standard Team

Intelligence agents in Mombasa believe Omar Nabhan, who is said to have taken part in the Westgate terrorist attack, may have escaped from Mombasa after a raid on his father’s residence following the 2002 bombing of an Israeli hotel in Kikambala, Kilifi.

Agents have disclosed to The Standard that Omar, his father and other family members have been living in Barawa town in Southern Somalia for a decade. This is after the fugitive fled a house in Mombasa in 2003 as police closed in.

The agents claim that Omar may have met Sheikh Ibrahim, whose killing on Thursday sparked riots in Mombasa, earlier this year, after slipping in from Somalia to plot attacks in Mombasa and Nairobi.

On Friday, the Kenya Defence Forces said Omar was killed during the four-day siege of the Westgate Mall, together with Abu Baara al-Sudani, Khattab al-Kene and Umayr.

Omar lived in a house in Tudor, Mombasa, with two men, including his father, whose name is not given, and the late Al Qaeda fugitive Saleh Ali

Saleh Ali Nabhan was killed in a raid in 2009 by helicopter-borne US special forces in southern Somalia. He was suspected of building the bomb that killed 15 people at the Kikambala hotel.

Omar, believed to have been fluent in Kiswahili, Arabic, Somali and Barawa languages, is said to have visited Kenya several times between 2005 and 2009, making stops in Malindi, Mombasa and Lamu.

  Radical Islamists

Intelligence officers also believe that Omar was likely among four militants who crossed from Kismayu area in Somalia and entered Mombasa through Kiunga and Malindi by road mid-July this year.

They believe he stayed in the Mtopanga area of Mombasa under the supervision of Sheikh Ibrahim, and later vanished without trace. It is not known if he visited other foreign countries or what kind of training he received as a terrorist.

His age is also not known and there are no details about his parents and siblings.

Young Omar grew up in a section of Tudor Estate surrounded by radical Islamists, including Mohamed Sadiq Uday, who was jailed in the US over his role in the August 7, 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam.

Also close to his family, intelligence sources say, was the late Harun Fazul Abdulla, the Al Qaeda mastermind behind the embassy bombings and the 2002 attack on Israeli properties in Mombasa and Kilifi.

Omar is said to have met Fazul in southern Somalia and to have been incensed by the killing of Fazul and Saleh Nabhan by US forces.

The Tudor neighbourhood, according to residents, was one of the first Al Qaeda cells, made up mainly of Kenyan Arab militants, including

Saleh Ali Nabhan. The Tudor cell included some of Ali Nabhan’s relatives and extended to Majengo area in Mombasa, intelligence sources say.

Reports indicate that Omar and his siblings did not pursue secular education after fleeing Kenya and suspect he was radicalised in local madrassa schools. But analysts suggest Omar may have become a militant jihadist following Saleh Ali Nabhan’s killing.

Meanwhile, intelligence sources trace Omar’s family to Pate Island in the Lamu archipelago, like slain radical Islamist Sheikh Ibrahim. But they indicate that Omar’s family lived in Tudor Estate, Mombasa, until a raid was conducted on his father’s house to search for evidence linked to the bombing of the Israeli hotel in Kikambala.

“All we know is that he was an adult we have been monitoring,” said Mombasa County Commander, Robert Kitur, when The Standard sought his profile yesterday.

Young boy

On Friday, KDF said Omar hailed from Mwembe Tayari area of Mombasa and was a Kenyan Arab.

 According to KDF, Omar left Kenya with his father and moved to Somalia 16 years ago but Sunday interviews with intelligence officials and other security agents revealed that Omar hailed from the same family line as Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the Al Qaeda leader killed in Somalia in 2009.

Families in the area bearing the Nabhan surname have disowned the alleged Omar following the KDF expose, but intelligence agents who spoke with The Standard in Mombasa and Lamu linked him to the raid on the Tudor house in early 2003.

“We believe Omar was a young boy when the raid was conducted but we cannot say if he was a son to the late Saleh Nabhan’s brother or relative,” said an intelligence officer who asked not to be named.

The officer, however, said when police raided the Tudor house in search of weapons and suspects, all the occupants, including a young boy, escaped.

  Fled to Barawa

According to the official, six AK 47 rifles, a Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher, a grenade and bullets of various kinds were found hidden behind a sofa set. The weapons were taken away.

“The owner of the house was not in during the raid,” said the intelligence official yesterday. He disclosed that investigations later revealed that the occupants fled to Barawa in southern Somalia with their families, including Omar.

Meanwhile, reports show that Sheikh Ibrahim was born in Faza 25 years ago and had little formal education. He was married to two women.

Local residents in Majengo, Mombasa, where Sheikh Ibrahim had a house, disclosed that he did not go beyond junior primary school and moved to Malindi to study the Koran.

He is described as “highly religious” and radical by supporters and admirers who say he had become particularly anti-establishment this year.

On Sunday, local lawyer Hussein Khalid claimed he had received reports that the late Sheikh Ibrahim was trailed from Musa mosque after night rayers by men in a car with Tanzanian registration numbers.