Nairobi (AFP) - A British
jihadist fighting for Somalia's Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Shebab, is
believed to have been killed in a thwarted attack on a Kenyan army base,
a Kenyan defence spokesman said.
The Briton is
believed to be among a group of militants who launched a pre-dawn raid
Sunday on a Kenyan army base in Baure, close to the border with Somalia.
Two
Kenyan soldiers were killed and at least 15 Shebab fighters died in the
shootout, among them two "Caucasians", according to Kenyan defence
officials.
"All the available
data, including photographs, points to it being Thomas Evans. There is
an investigation going on with forensics and DNA to confirm his
identity," said Kenya Defence Forces spokesman Colonel David Obonyo.
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If confirmed, Evans' death will be the first reported case of a British Islamist militant being killed on Kenyan soil.
Evans,
in his mid-20s and also known as Abdul Hakim, is a Muslim convert whose
family lives in Buckinghamshire in southern England. In 2011 he
reportedly travelled to Somalia to join Shebab.
The British embassy in Nairobi said it was "seeking to confirm reports" that a Briton had been killed.Kenya's interior ministry posted a notice on its official Twitter account showing side-by-side photographs of Evans and a dead militant who resembled him, under the banner, "Thomas Evans aka Abdul Hakim Killed. Kenya Stands Strong!"
In a
separate attack, also on Sunday, dozens of Shebab gunmen briefly took
over a village in Lamu county. Kenyan officials said a major security
operation was underway on Monday to pursue both groups of attackers.
The
raids came on the anniversary of attacks that began in mid-June 2014 in
which close to 100 people were killed in a series of armed assaults on
the town of Mpeketoni and surrounding villages.
- Shebab under pressure in Somalia -The attacks in Mpeketoni, close to the once-popular holiday island of Lamu, led to a collapse in tourism on Kenya's coast after foreign governments warned their nationals against travel to the area.
On
Monday human rights groups said that Kenya's security response to the
Mpeketoni massacres had been marked by beatings, arbitrary detentions
and theft.
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Under pressure in
Somalia where it has for years been fighting to overthrow the
internationally-backed government, Shebab is now increasingly targeting
Kenya.
In the group's
deadliest attack to date, four gunmen killed at least 148 people, mostly
students, at a university in Garissa in early April. In September 2013,
four Shebab gunmen killed at least 67 people in an assault on the
Westgate mall in the capital Nairobi.
The
Shebab were once a magnet for foreign volunteers, but their capacity to
recruit has in recent years been eclipsed by the rise of Islamic State
militants in Syria and Iraq, while several foreign Shebab members have
fallen victim to in-fighting and purges.
The
highest-profile British Shebab supporter is terror suspect Samantha
Lewthwaite, known as the "White Widow". She is wanted in Kenya on
charges of being in possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a
felony dating back to December 2011. Her alleged accomplice, Jermaine
Grant, is on trial in Mombasa accused of planning attacks on tourist
hotels.
Lewthwaite, a
31-year-old Muslim convert, is the widow of Germaine Lindsay, one of
four Islamist suicide bombers who attacked the London transport network
on July 7, 2005, killing 52 people.
Despite repeated rumours there has been no confirmed sighting of her since she gave Kenyan police the slip in Mombasa in 2011
