British man arrested in Somalia on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda

He was first stopped by immigration officials at Mogadishu’s heavily-fortified
airport after he had arrived on a scheduled Jubba Airways flight from
Nairobi, capital of neighbouring Kenya.

He had no visa and confirmed that there was no-one to collect him from the
airport.

After initial questioning, police were brought in to arrest the man on
suspicion of trying to enter the country illegally. It was alleged his
luggage contained daggers and hashish.

No charges have yet been brought, and he was still being interviewed by police
on Tuesday night. Reports from Somalia said that he had visited Ethiopia,
which neighbours Somalia, in 2010.

Security sources in Nairobi said it was unlikely that he would prove to be an
important operative for an international jihadist movement.

“Anyone who knows what they are doing, or is being sent to Somalia by
someone who knows what they are doing, would avoid Mogadishu at all costs,”
said one.

“It’s the seat of the government, the airport’s swarming with
intelligence [officers], and it’s far, far easier simply to slip in overland
or by sea from Kenya.”

Two young men from Cardiff were arrested last year after trying to walk
through the border between the two countries.

Several radicalised British Muslims are feared to be fighting alongside
al-Shabaab, which recently announced its formal partnering with al-Qaeda.

Police are still hunting for a woman believed to be Samantha Lewthwaite, the
widow of the 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay, over her alleged connections to a
separate bomb plot on Kenya’s coast.

Investigators in Nairobi fear that she fled into Somalia after police arrested
one of her suspected accomplices, Jermaine Grant, from Newham, East London,
in Mombasa in December.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office confirmed that they were aware of the
arrest of a British passport-holder in Mogadishu and were investigating.

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