Four terror suspects in Kenya have been killed during a dawn raid on a safe house in the coastal town of Malindi, police in the East African nation say.
The officers recovered arms, ammunition and a map of the area detailing future targets for attack, regional police commissioner Nelson Marwa said.
Suleiman Awadh, on Kenya’s most-wanted list, was among those killed, he said.
The Somalia-based al-Shabab Islamist militant group has launched a number of deadly high-profile attacks in Kenya.
These include storming a shopping centre the capital, Nairobi, in 2013 and raiding a university in the north-eastern town of Garissa last year.
In the aftermath of the Garissa attack, the police released photographs of those suspects on their most-wanted list.
Awahd had a $20,000 (£15,000) bounty on his head – and police said he may have been linked to attacks in the coastal town of Mpeketoni in 2014.
The gun battle in Malindi broke out after the suspects refused to surrender and threw a grenade at officers, police said.
The maps recovered in the raid showed plans to attack a police station, a supermarket and a park in the popular tourism destination, according to Malindi police chief Matawa Muchangi, quoted in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.
Police also said they found a letter requesting financial support, which they suspect was addressed to al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda.
Three other suspects wounded in the exchange escaped and are still at large.
Last week’s deadly al-Shabab attack on a Kenyan army base in Somalia has prompted a nationwide terror alert in Kenya.
The Somali-based militant group said it had killed more 100 Kenyan soldiers in the attack on Friday.
The Kenyan military has denied this, but has not come up with its own casualty figures. BBC
