Kenyan police claimed to be closing in on a British woman connected to plans to carry out terrorist attacks even as local officials question the Foreign Office decision to warn that a strike was being planned in Nairobi.
11:09PM GMT 08 Jan 2012
An arrest warrant has been issued for Natalie Faye Webb, who is suspected to have entered Kenya illegally with a forged South African passport.
She is believed to have links to Somali Islamists who have vowed to launch fresh terror attacks since Kenya went to war to rout the radical group al-Shabaab.
"We have had some positive feedback from publishing her picture, and I can say the dragnet is closing," a senior police source in Nairobi said.
"I can give no details, but suffice it to say that we believe she is not a small fish. She is among several Britons that our intelligence service is aware of in relation to terrorists' plans to attack us."
A Newham man, Jermaine Grant, is due to appear at a Kenyan court on Thursday to answer charges of possessing explosives and preparing an attack.
He was arrested in the coastal town of Mombasa last month, in an apartment where police also found chemicals, batteries and an electric switch.
Kenya is on heightened alert after police warned on Friday that there was a risk of fresh terror strikes following its invasion of Somalia in October to crush al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda.
The Foreign Office issued an update to its travel advisory for British tourists travelling to Kenya after the police warning last week.
The renewed advice was prompted by the Kenyan alert.
But British intelligence officials, who have been in Mombasa helping Kenya's terror investigations, are understood to have separate information which points to the threat of an impending attack in the capital, Nairobi.
"The Kenyan authorities have alerted the public to a heightened threat from terrorist attacks in Nairobi," the updated Foreign Office advice states.
"We believe that terrorists may be in the final stages of planning attacks. We strongly advise British Nationals to exercise extra vigilance and caution in public places and at public events."
Foreign Office spokesman would not give details of the new threat, citing security reasons and for fear of jeopardising intelligence operations.
Alfred Mutua, the government spokesman in Nairobi, could not be reached yesterday, but a senior government source said: "We have no information of any new attack, only that we know Shabaab are waiting to do something."
"We just want to be very alert because our Kenya Defence Forces are doing a very good job in Somalia," Anthony Kibuchi, Nairobi's police chief, said on Saturday after Kenya's new terror warning.
"Now the sympathisers of al-Shabaab are like a wounded buffalo, very dangerous. I was just asking members of the public to be extra alert."
The Foreign Office spokesman refused to comment on specific reasons for the new warning to British visitors.
"We are aware that the Kenyan authorities are interested in speaking to British nationals in relation to possible links to al-Shabaab," she added.
No comments:
Post a Comment