Chasing Shadows

Today’s Standard splashes on mounting suspicion that someone in Kenya’s anti-terror police unit tipped off Fazul Abdulla Mohammed, a key terror suspect, just as officers were about to swoop. They arrested a family thought to be hosting Fazul in Malindi even as his dinner was cooling on the table. But there was no sign of a man wanted for his role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.
This wasn’t the first time Fazul had slipped the net. But what was remarkable was the timing, coming just days before the 10th anniversary of the bombings and on the weekend the BBC World Service was airing its commemorative programme. Police even managed to snatch his laptop containing a pretty revealing diary,(thanks to Shashank for this).

On deciding to undergo jihadi training in Pakistan: “I said to my mother: ‘I have heard that some Comoro young men have graduated from military colleges in Pakistan.’
‘Who told you this?’ asked my mother….’All I want you to do is enroll in the university and to focus on any specialization that you deem appropriate. After you finish your studies, if you get an opportunity for military studies, there is no objection.”…
To be utterly frank, I wished to be a physician. However, I knew that Allah does what he wishes.

So it’s just a pity that my friends with the small earpieces tell me that Fazul was holed up in southern Somalia, protected by the Shabaab, during the weekend in question and was nowhere near the beach resort town of Malindi. The security services case is undermined further by the fact that his three hosts were released on police bond yesterday – unlikely if they were really thought to have been abetting an al Qaeda operative.