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British jihadi killed fighting for Al-Shabaab in Lamu


A British jihadi fighting for Somalia`s Al Qaeda affiliate, the Al-Shabaab, is believed to have been killed in a thwarted attack on a Kenyan army base on Sunday.

Military spokesman Col David Obonyo confirmed that one of the killed attackers is Thomas Evans, 25 who was part of Al-Shabaab terrorists who attacked  the military camp in Lamu Sunday morning.

“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,” Col Obonyo told AFP on Monday.

Thomas Evans is also believed to be part of the militants who attacked the coastal town of Mpeketoni in Lamu county last year in which 70 people were killed.

Thomas was first highlighted as a jihadist on a terrorist mission in Africa by Daily Mail  in an interview with his mother in which she narrated how she would rather see him imprisoned.

His mother, Sally Evans, in the June 2014 article, said that she notifies police every time her son contacts her in an effort to get him arrested as opposed to seeing him dying a jihadist.

Military spokesperson Col David Obonyo said two of the 11 attackers killed on Sunday were of Caucasian origin, adding that several others fled into Boni forest with injuries.

WEAPONS SEIZED

Various weapons, including 13 AK-47 rifles, five rocket-propelled grenades and eight other grenades were found on the dead attackers.

Two Kenyan soldiers died in the attack, which coincided with the first anniversary of the Mpeketoni attack.

In a documentary aired by Aljazeera last year, footage of the Al-shabaab militants who carried out the Lamu attacks showed men on Caucasian origin.

Witness accounts narrated to different media outlets after the attacks also had the locals reporting to have seen a white man commanding fellow militants in British English and occasionally in Arabic.

Daily Mail reported that Thomas converted to Islam aged 19 and adopted the Islamic name Abdul Hakim.

Evans attempted to fly to Kenya in February 2011 but was blocked by anti-terrorism police at Heathrow.

A few months later he went to Egypt, saying he was planning to study Arabic. Police later informed his mother he had been trying to enter Kenya.

It wasn’t until January 2012 that he phoned and told her he was in Somalia and was prepared to die for his Islamist beliefs.

He said she wouldn’t see him again. In August that year he claimed he had been shot in the leg and treated at a ‘field hospital’.