By Daniel Ooko

    NAIROBI, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police on Tuesday stepped up efforts to arrest one of East Africa's most wanted terror suspect, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who escaped a police dragnet over the weekend.

    Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe has circulated two photographs believed to be latest images of the suspect as authorities stepped up a massive manhunt.

    The 32-year-old Mohammed, indicted in the United States for alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, managed to evade police in a raid on Saturday in Malindi, along Kenya's coast.

    The United States calls Mohammed a senior al-Qaeda operative in East Africa. US officials accuse him of being an architect of the embassy bombings that killed 225 people.

    They also believe Mohammed was involved in attacks on an Israeli-owned hotel and airliner in Kenya in 2002.

    Kiraithe said authorities received information from "local intelligence networks" that led them to conduct the raid, which involved no foreign intelligence officials.

    Kiraithe said in a statement that the police know Mohammed had, in fact, been at the location they raided, because they found two passports under names Mohammed has used.

    The photographs being circulated were obtained from two passports seized in the weekend raid in Malindi.

    "Kenya Police would want to assure the public that Kenya's security agents are alert and any terrorism activity will be detected and the suspects dealt with according to the law," Kiraithe said.

    Three of Mohammed's close associates were arrested during the raid and have since been arraigned in court.

    Kiraithe said that Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) had all the reasons to believe that Mohammed is holed up in the coast. "Consequent upon the foregoing, police have reason to believe that the wanted suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed will soon be arrested," he said.

    Kiraithe said security had been beefed up at the Coastal region "in search of the wanted fugitive." He said Mohammed had been using the two passports in the names of Ali Mohamed Abubakar and Adan Hussein Ali.

    Kiraithe said more security officers were flown to the Coastal region as the hunt for the fugitive intensified.

    "Our focus is now in Mombasa, more officers have been sent there and they are already following very crucial leads," a senior detective said.

    Mohammed is accused of masterminding simultaneous al-Qaida attacks in Mombasa in 2002. A car packed with explosives rammed into an Israeli-owned hotel, killing 15 people, and two surface-to-air missiles were fired at an Israeli charter plane, narrowly missing their target.

    The terror suspect has also been indicted in the U.S. for involvement in earlier attacks on the American embassies in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, which occurred 10 years ago this week and killed 235 people.

    In December 2007, the UN Security Council amended a list of 25 al-Qaeda suspects subject to sanctions, including Mohammed. The description of Mohammed offered numerous aliases and said he had "reportedly undergone plastic surgery."

    It adds, "Mohammed likes to wear baseball caps and tends to dress casually. He is very good with computers."

    The authorities charged three people on Monday with helping Mohammed escape over the weekend.

    Mombasa Chief Magistrate Catherine Mwangi ordered that they be remanded in custody until Friday when the court will make a ruling on whether they should be released on bail after the prosecution opposed their release.

    Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) urged the court to give them time carry out further investigations. State prosecutor Dominic Mate told the magistrate that investigators wanted at least four more days to interrogate the suspects.

    He said the officer leading the case wanted to ascertain what links the three have with Mohammed.

    Lawyer Abubakar Yusuf who is acting for the three family members challenged the bid by the prosecution to detain his clients until Friday, arguing that it is a violation of their fundamental rights.

    Meanwhile, local reports said Mohammed may have been tipped off by a police officer about the impending operation to arrest him.

    The Standard newspaper which obtained details of how he managed to slip away minutes before the police struck at his hideout quoted police source as saying: "He may have been tipped when the raid was very close."

    Police said Mohammed literally ran out of the house since he also left his two passports behind. About 40 police officers were involved in the raid.

    Police said the suspect, who had sneaked into Kenya from Somalia to seek treatment for a kidney ailment, apparently used public transport to Mombasa.