Nightmare continues for British woman kidnapped by Somalis

by: jim kouri | published: 09 15, 2011

The British government reportedly deployed special forces troops -- probably members of the Special Air Service (SAS) - in a military operation to rescue a female British subject from her Somali abductors.

Special forces last night continued hunting for the kidnappers of a British woman whose husband died in a brutal attack at a Kenyan beach resort neighboring war-torn Somalia .

Judith Tebbutt was abducted from the exclusive hotel on a coral beach close to the Somali border. British counterterrorism officials believe she was taken to a waiting boat and her captors brought her into Somalia.

The kidnapped woman's husband, David Tebbut was executed by the attackers when he attempted to fight off the intruders and protect his wife. Several security experts said they believe the killers/abductors are linked to al-Qaeda.

One report states that 58-year old Judith was dragged down to the beach by up to six men and brought onboard a waiting motorboat. A police source told the Law Enforcement Examiner that David Tebbutt was a 56-year old finance director at the London publishing house Faber and Faber. The unarmed David was murdered execution-style with a single gunshot to his head, said the source.

British soldiers –- thought to be members of the Special Air Service or SAS – were seen searching both sides of the Kenya-Somali border area yesterday together with armed Kenyan police dressed in camouflage fatigues .

Last night it was reported that a Somali man was detained by police and was being questioned in the town of Lamu. It's not known if he's a suspect, a person of interest or a witness to the violent murder and kidnapping.

Law Enforcement Examiner was told of an unconfirmed report that a man is thought to have been in communication with an accomplice from Somalia, who may have worked at the hotel in the past. The source said that he quit working at the Kenyan resort and returned to Somalia to join the radical Islamic terrorist group Al Shabaab, an ally of al-Qaeda.

However, a second report states that the Kenyan police and British commandos are not ruling out the possibility that the killers/abductors are linked to Somali pirates, since their MO is abducting foreigners -- preferably Americans or Europeans -- in hopes of obtaining large ransoms.

Somalis Kill Four Americans Onboard Yacht

Last month, two Somali nationals who pleaded guilty to an act of piracy and abduction that lead to the deaths of four Americans were sentenced to life in federal prison in a New York City federal courtroom

Burhan Abdirahman Yusuf and Ali Abdi Mohamed were among 11 Somalis who pleaded guilty over the February 2011 hijacking of the yacht The Quest off the African coast. Three other men have been charged with murder over the attack.

The two men and two women were held on the yacht for ransom by the pirates and were the subject of intense discussions between U.S. special forces and the Somali pirates.

The group of pirates were discussing terms with the US military to release the Americans -- Scott and Jean Adam, Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay -- when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired from the yacht at the guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett.

Gunfire then broke out inside the yacht, and US special forces were sent to investigate. The pirates killed their hostages before the troops boarded, the US military said.

The troops shot and killed two pirates as they boarded and another two were found dead when they arrived.

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