Hawks watching al-Shabab in SA

South African police are investigating alleged fundraising and recruitment in the country by terrorist group al-Shabab.

Confirmation of the investigation, by the Hawks' crimes against the state unit, follows revelations by Kenyan authorities that one of the suspects in the devastating attack on a Nairobi shopping centre has been travelling on a false South African passport.

Al-Shabab, based in Somalia and linked to global terror network al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the atrocity in Kenya, which claimed at least 72 lives.

Hawks spokesman Captain Paul Ramaloko confirmed yesterday that the group's activities in South Africa were under investigation.

"It has been under way for sometime . It must not be confused with what happened in Kenya.

"The investigation is at a particular stage . We are not at liberty to divulge the direction or say what prompted it.

"What we can say is that we are monitoring this organisation's activities very closely."

Hundreds of Kenyan military, police and special forces officers faced off with al-Shabab members - holding hostages - inside the Westgate Mall in Nairobi yesterday. There had been running gun battles, bomb blasts and grenade attacks in the mall since Saturday.

Just before 7pm last night (South African time), Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the siege had ended.

Declaring three days of national mourning, he said the dead included 61 civilians, six security officers and five terrorists. Eleven terrorists were in custody. The death toll is expected to rise.

A South African woman is feared to be among the victims. South Africa's ambassador to Kenya, Ratubatsi Moloi, told Eyewitness News: "We have been given the name of a lady who has been missing since this incident took place. There are unidentified bodies at various mortuaries and embassy staff are checking if there are any South Africans there."

Capetonian training consultant James Thomas, 57, was earlier confirmed shot dead by the assailants.

Two US teenagers were allegedly among about 16 al-Shabab gunmen who stormed the packed shopping mall, shooting and hurling grenades at shoppers, including children and pregnant women, on Saturday.

Another of the perpetrators of the attack is suspected to be British national Samantha Lewthwaite - known as the ''White Widow'' - who was married to 2005 London suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay. Kenyan authorities said Lewthwaite had been using a possibly falsified South African passport bearing the name Natalie Faye Webb.

She allegedly entered Kenya on the passport last year with her three children. An arrest warrant was issued for her this year after allegations she was plotting attacks on Kenyan coastal resorts.

Beeld reported yesterday that Lewthwaite had visited South Africa several times.

South African police sources said Lewthwaite had recently become "someone of interest" to the Hawks investigators probing al-Shabab for allegedly raising funds and possibly recruiting jihadists in the country.

Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said it had noted media reports about Lewthwaite's falsified passport but had not received any official communique from Kenyan officials to validate the passport.

Mamoepa said the necessary steps had been taken to ensure the "wrong" elements could not "obtain our passports for use in their nefarious activities".

Na'eem Jeenah, director of the South African-based research organisation Afro-Middle East Centre, said Kenya's involvement in Somalia as part of an African Union peacekeeping mission was a major reason for the attack on the shopping mall.

Though there was a sizeable Somali community in South Africa - that possibly sympathised with al-Shabab in the mid-2000s when the grouping was still popular - the notion that al-Shabab used South Africa as a base from which to plan activities took "it too far".

"We should not jump to that conclusion . They may come through here, spend a couple of months and leave, but if they organised terror cells here it would attract attention from authorities and shut off access to South Africa."

The Somali Association of SA vice-chairman, Ibrahim Shuriye, said al-Shabab had "no support from our community".

"They claim religion as their motive, but religion does not teach the use of violence," he said. - Additional reporting by AFP