Sunni Madressa Secondary School in Mkunazini, Zanzibar, where Ms Ummi
Khayr Sadir graduated in 2011. Ms Sadir was earlier this week arrested
and detained in Mombasa, Kenya, on suspicion of planning to travel to
Somalia to join the militant group Al-Shabaab
By Mwinyi Sadallah
In Summary
Zanzibar. Zanzibar residents who know
19-year-old Tanzanian woman Ummul Khayr Sadri, who is being held in
Kenya over alleged terrorism links, were in shock yesterday after
learning of her fate.
The Citizen separately established yesterday that
Ms Sadri’s parents are not lecturers in Sudan as earlier reported in
Kenya where she and two young Kenyan women are being held for allegedly
planning to travel to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab and later Isis in
Syria.
Sources in Dar es Salaam who are close to the
suspect’s family confirmed that Ms Sadri’s mother, Ms Talhiya Masoud, is
a teacher at Maahad Muslim Women’s Institution in Zanzibar. Her father,
Mr Sadri Abdallah Said, is a businessman based in Oman. He travelled to
Mombasa after learning of his daughters arrest and detention.
Speaking to The Citizen yesterday in Zanzibar, a
secondary school teacher at Ms Sadri’s former school said they were in
shock after their former student was linked to terrorism.
The teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said he knew Ms Sadri as a bright student during her days at Sunni
Madressa School.
The teacher described Ms Sadri as a student who
was well behaved during her secondary school days and added that she was
a talented girl who respected her teachers.
The senior teacher at Sunni Madressa School said
that Ms Sadri attained her primary school education at Memon Primary
School located on Mbuyuni Street in Unguja before joining secondary
level.
The teacher recalled how Ms Sadri made her
teachers proud at her secondary school when she passed with flying
colours in her final exams in 2011, emerging the best student in that
year with top distinctions.
“I don’t believe what is being said about her now.
I was always impressed by her discipline and dedication to her studies.
She was a bright girl,’’ she said.
The student was later sponsored by the Zanzibar
government to pursue a degree in medicine in Sudan, where she was in
third year at the International University of Africa in Khartoum.
The university students loans manager in Zanzibar,
Mr Aboud Iddi, confirmed to The Citizen yesterday that Ms Ummul was
being sponsored by the Zanzibar government in her current studies in
Sudan but he declined to disclose further details.
News of how the young women planned to join terror
groups in Syria emerged on Monday, with details indicating that she was
recruited on the Internet by a female agent of the Syria based ISIS.
Reports from Kenya suggest that Ms Sadri was the mastermind of the plan
to join Isis. The plan involved other two Kenyan girls. Ms Sadri
allegedly joined Al-Shabaab last September before she returned to
recruit her two Kenyan accomplices.
The reports also claim that she confessed during interrogation
by Kenyan detectives that she was recruited by an agent named Abdulla
Ibl Zubeir through a telephone contact in Somalia.
On Monday, she told relatives that someone was
supposed to meet them. They were unable to connect with Abdulla, whom
Kenyan investigators suspect was in Mandera, and the alleged Syrian
contact.
The other woman, Ms Khadija Abubakar Abdulkadir,
was reportedly pursuing a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy at Mount Kenya
University. But Mount Kenya University has since denied that she is a
student at the university.
Another suspect is Ms Maryam Said Aboud from
Mombasa. All the girls, aged 19, hoped to reach Syria and join Islamic
State, police claim. Their prospective terror group, is so brutal that
even Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has disowned it.
The three women are being held by Police for 20
days by order of a Mombasa court following a request by investigators
who said they needed time to piece evidence together before charging the
trio with the offence.
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