Two of the suspected bombers in last week's botched attack on London's transport network travelled to the UK on Kenyan passports, Scotland Yard announced yesterday. The two, who police say were originally from Somalia, were now on the run and might have fled to Holland, where there is a big Somali community.
Officers from UK's metropolitan police anti-terror unit might fly to Nairobi this week as the search widens, a Yard spokesman said. Anti-terror police in London say they believe there is an active Al Qaeda cell in Kenya, and want to question people believed to be connected with it. Kenya has been targeted twice by terrorists: first during the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi when 224 people died and 5,000 were injured and again in the 2002 bombing of an Israeli owned hotel in Kikambala, Kilifi District, when 15 people were killed.
| That'd seem to imply that there's an active Qaeda cell there, wouldn't it? That might be because you're in the habit of acquitting the bastards when you do catch 'em... |
The failed bomb attack on a London bus and the underground rail network last Thursday triggered an urgent scrutiny by British immigration officials of records of thousands of refugees and asylum-seekers from East Africa in their search for the bombers, according to reports in The Times of London. Police believe the men have been living in Britain for some time and were not smuggled into the country just ahead of their attempted suicide attacks. They are believed to have family in the UK as well as links with the substantial Kenyan, Somali and Ethiopian communities around London.
The Times reported that East African community leaders in London had been asked to help police in Britain's biggest manhunt. Britain's Home Office says 6,010 Kenyans applied for asylum in the last 10 years, of whom 440 were given asylum or allowed to stay in the UK. There are no figures for how many of those refused asylum have been returned home, according to The Times report. Home Office figures show that 45,815 Somalis - minus dependents - applied for asylum in Britain between 1993 and 2004. Of these, 30,875 were given asylum or allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds, said The Times.
Both would-be suicide bombers of Somali origin lived in Kenya, later acquiring Kenyan passports to travel to London, before claiming political asylum. A relative of one of them, who was at the family's house provided by the local London council's social services department, told the Nation he was living in Mombasa before travelling to Wales and claiming political asylum. The relative, known only as Fatuma, told the media before being led away by police: "He lived in Kenya before coming to London. He is a staunch Muslim and for sure, he might not be involved." Then she added: "Even if he is, then it might be influence from other people he hangs out with." |