A white man speaking English organized the recent deadly al-Shabaab raids on Kenya's coastal town of Mpeketoni, witnesses said.
At least 60 people were killed by al-Shabaab militants during an attack on hotels, a police station, homes and other areas in the northern town last Sunday. Witnesses told The Telegraph that militants from the Somalia-based group were led by a white man who spoke British English and Arabic.
"I saw a white man who was speaking in fluent British English commanding the rest of the attackers," Mary Gachoki, an elementary school teacher who lives in Mpeketoni, told the newspaper.
Another woman, who wished not to be identified, said she saw the same man coordinating the attack.
"I saw him ordering them to carry out the attacks, he could be heard speaking frequently and at one point he spoke in Arabic but most of the time in English," the woman told The Telegraph.
At least 40 gunmen dressed in military uniforms stormed the town on Sunday and open fired inside hotels, a gas station, a bank and a government office, the Kenyan Red Cross told CNN. The gunmen moved throughout the town asking people if they were Muslim. Those who said they were not were killed.
Sunday's attack was followed by another deadly assault on Monday in villages near Mpeketoni that left at least 15 dead and several women kidnapped.
Benson Maisori, a local deputy commissioner, denounced the claims that a white person was involved, saying the witnesses mistook a German man who lives in the town with his wife as the attacker, The Telegraph reported.
But the claims are similar to others that were made in the aftermath of the September 2013 shootings at a Nairobi shopping mall. At the time witnesses said a white woman helped carry out the attack that killed at least 39 people.
