On October 3, 2013, Salim Aboud Khalid was the only man who survived after a vehicle he was travelling in was sprayed with bullets by people suspected to be police officers on Mombasa-Malindi highway in Mombasa.
In the car were four other people: Sheikh Ibrahim Ismail – the successor to slain radical Muslim cleric Sheikh Aboud Rogo – Gadaffi Mohammed, Issa Abdalla (driver) and Omar Abu Rumeisa.
Khalid had survived the attack by lying in the car and playing dead.
“We have finished them,” Khalid heard them say. The shooters, he said, sped-off in a Mark X.
After the incident, Khalid, who was nicknamed Survivor, went underground with his name being put in the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) wanted list.
Six years down the line on Wednesday, police officers from the elite Recce squad together with their ATPU counterparts tracked him down.
They stormed the quiet Tudor Mwisho residence where they shot him three times: in the stomach, hand and leg.
Once again, he cheated death as he was rushed to Coast General Provincial Hospital (CPGH) where he is recuperating.
He is in stable condition, according to photos seen by the Nation. Mombasa police commander Eliud Monari said the wanted terrorism suspect is under police custody at the hospital.
“The suspect is linked to terror-related activities and has for long been tracked by our officers from the ATPU. We believe he had travelled to Somalia, as he has not been around for quite some time,” said Mr Monari.
As the police watched Khalid, intelligence sources claimed that his brother, identified as Hausam, was recently killed in Somalia where he was operating under Al-Shabaab.
Khalid’s sister is also believed to have gone to Somalia to join the terror group, according to relatives who spoke to the Nation.
This comes as the Nation learnt of a trend where the authorities have been tracking down terror operatives linked to Sheikh Rogo.
Analyses done by the Nation have shown that terror operatives recently killed were radicalised and recruited into Shabaab by Sheikh Rogo and his close ally Sheikh Abubakar Shariff, alias Makaburi, at Musa Mosque in Majengo. The two were killed in 2012 and 2014, respectively.
Those recently killed Mohammed Rashid Mwatsumiro, alias Modi, who was suspected to be the leader of a gang in the South Coast, and DusitD2 suicide bomber Mahir Riziki.
A police brief shared recently indicated that Modi was a close associate of Mahir, and that they both travelled to Somalia before quietly returning to Kenya towards the end of last year.
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