A British man killed while fighting
with Islamist militant group al-Shabab in Kenya was second in command of
his unit at the time, the BBC has learned.
Thomas Evans, 25, from Buckinghamshire, died in the thwarted attack on a military base on 14 June.
Police now say he was also the group's cameraman, and captured images of the incident up until his death.
Kenyan security forces killed 11 gunmen, and two soldiers died in the raid near the Somali border.
High-profile attacks
Christipo Mutali, from the Kenyan police, says he witnessed the attack in which the 25-year-old died.
"He
was the one carrying the video during the attack. And he was
commanding, 'Let's move on, we are winning men, let's go, come in, let
us shoot, we are winning.'
"There were two lines. He was the one leading the front line."
Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia, has been behind a
series of high-profile attacks including the Westgate shopping centre
siege in Nairobi in 2013, and a violent assault on a university earlier
this year in which nearly 150 people were killed.
BBC News
correspondent Karen Allen said police had confirmed Evans, a Muslim
convert who changed his name to Abdul Hakim, was second in command on
the day of the latest raid.
He can apparently be heard in a recording shouting orders over a radio to younger al-Shabab fighters, our correspondent added.
Analysis
By Karen Allen, BBC News correspondent
The issue of foreign fighters joining al-Shabab is a deeply political one in Kenya.
The
Kenyan government has seen a big recruitment drive by the Somali group
here in its own backyard, but has always insisted al-Shabab is a global
problem.
There will be a sense of vindication at the confirmation
that Briton Thomas Evans was the second-in-command during last week's
siege. Likewise the announcement that a second foreigner - German
national Andreas Martin Muller - was also said to be involved and is
believed to be on the run.
No-one is keen to speak openly about
efforts to track foreign fighters, but a team of American "agents" I
spotted in the north east of the country earlier this week hardly seemed
a surprise - Britain, the US and Kenya share intelligence.
Western
sources believe that Thomas Evans was one of around 100 British
fighters who have joined al-Shabab. That figure is considered low
compared with a couple of years ago when people were talking in the
order of thousands. Evans contacted his family in Wooburn Green in January 2012 to say he had travelled to Somalia to join the group.
British police had stopped him at Heathrow Airport in 2011 as he tried to board a plane to Kenya.
A few months later, he flew to Egypt, telling his family it was to learn Arabic.
It
is now understood that, before he arrived in Somalia, Evans had tried
to reach the Kenyan port of Mombasa from Egypt, but was stopped before
he reached the border.
His mother, Sally, told the BBC her "whole world has fallen apart" when she heard of his death.
Speaking from her home on 15 June, she said her son had met "some
people with some very twisted, warped ideas of Islam" in the local area
to begin with, and was later influenced by online material.
Ms Evans had previously told a committee of MPs that there had been a "massive failure" by UK authorities in allowing her son to leave Britain.
Who are al-Shabab?
Al-Shabab means The Youth in Arabic and is allied to al-Qaeda
It is an Islamist militant group
battling the UN-backed government in Somalia, and has carried out a
string of attacks in neighbouring Kenya
It emerged as the radical youth wing
of Somalia's now-defunct Union of Islamic Courts, which controlled
Mogadishu in 2006, before being forced out by Ethiopian forces
There are numerous reports of foreign
jihadists going to Somalia to help al-Shabab, from neighbouring
countries, as well as the US and Europe
It is banned as a terrorist group by both the US and the UK and is believed to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters
Who are Somalia's al-Shabab? Meanwhile,
the Kenyan government has released photographs of 38 fighters believed
to have been involved in al-Shabab's latest attack. Among them is a
German man, Andreas Martin Muller, who has been on a watch list for the
past six years.
Kenyan police have issued a $100,000 (£64,000) reward for the capture of the German national who has the alias Abu Nusaybah.
The reward is part of a police campaign known in Kiswahili as Kaa Chonjo
Usinyamaze ("Be alert, don't keep quiet") which was launched to combat
the threat from the jihadists.
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