MAU MAU LEADER TAKEN

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 16

MAU MAU LEADER TAKEN

Swamp Siege Ends (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NAIROBI, January 22. Kenya’s “Operation Bulrush,” in which 1500 British troops and 2500 Africans have for three weeks besieged about 60 Mau Mau terrorists in a 20-mile papyrus swamp at Naivasha, ended today.

It was called off after 22 of the men lurking in the swamp, 50 miles from Nairobi, had been killed, wounded and captured. About 20 escaped. The biggest capture of the operation was that of “Field-Marshal” Mbaria Kaniu, third man in the Mau Mau hierarchy. A Mau Mau “General” is also known to have been killed. Men of the first battalions of the Rifle Brigade, Gloucestershire Regiment, and King’s Shropshire Light' Infantry, aided by 1000 African Home Guards and police, stood waist deep in the leech-infested waters to form a 12-mile cordon. Bren gun posts looked over the lake, and searchlights and trip-flares lit the scene at night, while gangs of Africans with panga knives and bulldozers gradually cut down the grass andrushes to expose the lairs of the hunted men.

Light aeroplanes, mortars and machine-guns pumped shells and bullets into the swamp as its uncombed area dwindled day by day, while security forces patrolled around on foot, picking off the terrorists who tried to break through the tightening cordon.