Police raid Mombasa houses in search of terror suspect

Anti-Terror police officers Sunday morning raided two houses at Kisauni in Mombasa County in search for a terror suspect, Farid Omar.

It is reported that over 30 heavily armed security agencies participated in the operation that took place at 3am on Sunday.

Locals have expressed their disappointment with the raid, saying it only targeted innocent and harmless people.

According to Zahra Awadh, whose husband was allegedly being pursued during the raid, accused the police of using excessive force and damaging furniture, windows and doors.

Hussein Matasio and his wife Maryam Mzee, whose second house was also raided, claimed that despite having introduced themselves to the officers they were roughed up in the presence of their children and ordered to lie down.

The government has tightened security in the recent past to minimise the operations of terror suspects in the country.

In a bid to tame extremism and terrorism, the government has launched an operation dubbed Operation Linda Boni to flash out terrorists from Boni Forest in Lamu.

The forest has for long been considered an escape route for terrorists after executing attacks in parts of Lamu.

Reports indicate that suspected Al Shabaab terrorists have inhabited the forest and set camp used for training insurgents.