LAMU, Kenya, June 15 (Xinhua) — Kenyan police on Monday confirmed that a British Muslim convert has been killed in a foiled raid by Al-Shabaab fighters on a military camp in the country’s coastal region of Lamu.
The British citizen in his twenties, Thomas Evans, alias Abdul Hakim, and Al-Shabaab’s regional commander, Lukeman Osman, alias Shirwa, were among the 15 militants killed on Sunday, said Lamu county administration police commander, Chrispus Mutali.
“We have identified the chief leader for the coast region as Lukeman Osman, alias Shirwa, who was killed by KDF (Kenya Defence Forces). His two deputies, Thomas Evans and Said Hamasa, were also killed,” Mutali told journalists in Lamu, adding that the three led more than 50 militants in the attack.
Evans, who is said to have converted to Islam at age 19, reportedly traveled to Somalia in 2011 to fight alongside the militant group and was trained as a suicide bomber.
Another white man killed in the raid is awaiting DNA tests in Nairobi to establish his identity, Mutali said.
Osman led the two attacks in Mpeketoni last June that claimed more than 60 lives, while Hamasa was a local businessman in the coastal city of Mombasa before joining Al-Shabaab, according to the official.
“Some of the Al-Shabaab suspects escaped with injuries and we wish to appeal to members of the public to be on the lookout for such people seeking treatment in the hospitals,” he added.
Somalia-based Al-Shabaab has launched a series of attacks in Kenya since Kenyan troops entered Somalia in 2011 to fight the Al- Qaida-linked group.
Its gunmen killed 148 people in a university in Kenya’s northeastern county of Garissa on April 2.