Tanzanian Association Oslo

Al-Qaeda suspects

threaten MSL scribe

 

THISDAY REPORTER 

Dar es Salaam 

AN investigative journalist with Media Solutions Limited (MSL), publishers of THISDAY and KULIKONI newspapers, has received threats following the newspapers’ recent coverage of reported Al-Qaeda activities in the country. 

’’Highly warning to you THISDAY and KULIKONI. You are dealing with a big boss in the world...’’ says part of a grammatically wrong chilly text message sent to a private mobile phone handset of the journalist (name withheld for security reasons.) 

The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Said Mwema, pledged a thorough police investigation into the matter. 

The sender of the message did not identify himself and the number is temporarily not reachable. 

The text message came immediately after two sister papers started publishing a series of investigative reports about the presence of an alleged Al-Qaeda operative in Tanzania masquerading as a bona fide investor. 

According to the journalist, the message was delivered on his phone on Friday last week at around 9.30am. 

’’I don’t know who sent me that message, but I suspect it is linked to the latest reports we have been publishing about suspected Al-Qaeda activities in the country,’’ said the journalist. 

The threats to the journalist were officially reported at the Central Police Station in Dar es Salaam on September 26, 2008 and recorded under RB number CD/RB/12474/08. 

Police have pledged to investigate the matter. 

IGP Mwema said police were already investigating the reported Al-Qaeda activities in the country and would thoroughly study the threats against the journalist. 

’’Our investigators will look into the threats on the journalist, since they have already been working on the reported terrorist threats,’’ he said. 

According to security sources, a fugitive Al-Qaeda suspect, Fazul Abdallah Mohamed, may be hiding in the country after recently fleeing arrest in neighbouring Kenya. 

Fazul, the suspected mastermind of the 1998 simultaneous bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi that killed a total of 224 people, is thought to have entered the country through Tanga after escaping from the Kenyan coastal town of Malindi. 

Last month, the elusive terrorist suspect avoided a security dragnet in Kenya where he had gone to seek medical treatment. 

Fazul, who hails from the Comoros, is understood to be one of the key operatives of the Al-Qaeda network in East Africa and is described as being fluent in Arabic, Kiswahili, English and French. 

Reports of the suspect’s possible whereabouts in Tanzania come as authorities in the country have been probing allegations that another man from the Comoros masquerading as a foreign investor in the country has possible links to Fazul. 

A special inter-governmental committee has already been formed to tackle terrorism and other economic crimes in the country.