Kenya search expands for kidnapped British woman
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Kenyan police have now expanded the search for a female British holidaymaker, kidnapped in an attack at a luxury beach resort by suspected Somali Islamist extremists who killed her husband.
"We are using all the tactics and resources available but we have not made any success so far - we hope to find her safe," said regional police commander Aggrey Adoli, who is leading the search.
Kenyan police named the couple as David and Judith Tebbutt, who are believed to be in their mid-fifties, and from the town of Bishop's Stortford in southeast England.
The attack took place in the early hours on Sunday morning at a tourist lodge in the Kiunga marine reserve on the Lamu archipelago off Kenya's northern coast, officials said.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the affected family," the hotel where the attack took place, the Kiwayu Safari Village, said in a statement posted on its website Monday following the "tragic events."
Officers launched a massive manhunt for the abductors, using speedboats and helicopters. Police said they suspected the attackers were Shebab extremists from Somalia.
"Our forces have been out since Sunday doing everything possible to rescue her," Adoli said on telephone from Kiunga, where the attack took place, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Kenya's border with Somalia.
"We have also appealed to members of the public in this area to work closely with us," he added.
Extra police officers and soldiers have been called in to boost search efforts, Adoli said.
The Lamu island chain and the surrounding area is one of Kenya's top luxury holiday destinations, despite being close to the border with war-torn and drought-struck Somalia.
Most of southern Somalia is controlled by the Al-Qaeda linked Shebab, who are waging an insurgency against Somalia's fragile, Western-backed government.
Kenyan police chief Mathew Iteere said the couple, who had arrived at the resort during the day ib Saturday, were attacked in their room shortly after midnight.
They were the resort's only guests at the time.
"There was only one shot, I think the husband resisted from what we gather - maybe they wanted to take the two, but he resisted," Iteere told reporters late Sunday.
The complex had been well protected by six police and 22 private guards, he said, yet the cottages 'do not even have a door - just cloth as the door - so they gained entry so easily.'
Britain's Foreign Office said officials are investigating the case alongside their Kenyan counterparts.
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