Terror link to acid attack on British girls?  Zanzibar police arrest Al Shabaab militants following identical assault on Catholic priest

• 15 people arrested, including suspected members of Al Shabeeb
  
• Teenagers Kirstie Trup and Katie Gee were left badly injured after two men threw acid at them
• It comes after attack on elderly clergyman Amselmo Mwangamba on Friday
  

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: 12:04 EDT, 17 September 2013 | Updated: 08:11 EDT, 18 September 2013

Terror group Al Shabaab has been linked to the acid attack on British teenagers Katie Gee and Kirstie Trup.

Police in Zanzibar said suspected members of the Al Qaeda-inspired group were among 15 people arrested, with others said to be behind an acid attack on a Roman Catholic priest on Friday.

An official also said prosecutors were close to charging two other men suspected of the attack on the 18-year-old Londoners.

British teenagers Kirstie Trup and Katie Gee were left badly injured after two men on a moped threw acid at them while they walked to dinner on the Indian Ocean island.

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Zanzibar police have arrested suspected members of terror group al Shabaab in a round-up which followed an acid attack on Catholic priest a month after British teenagers Kirstie Trup and Katie Gee were left badly injured

The arrests come after elderly clergyman Amselmo Mwangamba was the victim of an identical assault on Friday that left him with burns on his face, chest and arms.

Zanzibar's police commissioner, Mussa Ali Mussa, said: 'Fifteen people have been arrested in police raids on criminal networks.

'Among them are suspected members of al Shabaab, suspects behind the recent acid attack on a Roman Catholic priest and unlicensed acid distributors.'

Mussa did not say what the suspected militants were doing on the archipelago, though he said they were not linked to the acid attacks. 

Both father Mwangamba and the British teenagers were attacked in Stone Town, the historic centre of  Zanzibar City (file photo)

Al Shabaab is an al Qaeda-allied group that has been fighting the Western-backed government in Somalia, around 500 km (310 miles) north along Africa's coast from Zanzibar.

Painful: This photograph released by the teenagers' families showed the injuries one of them suffered in the attack

As in neighbouring Kenya, many Muslims living along Tanzania's coast feel marginalised by the secular government and both countries have been fertile recruitment grounds for the Islamist groups.

Mussa said prosecutors were close to laying charges against two other men detained in connection with the attack on Britons Katie Gee and Kirstie Trup.

The two teenagers were walking to a restaurant in Stone Town when a two men on a moped rode up to them and the passenger hurled a jerry can full of battery acid at them.

The young women suffered facial, chest and back injuries.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has warned that religious tensions threaten peace in the nation of 45 million people.

Two Christian leaders were killed in Zanzibar earlier this year in separate attacks and there have been arson attacks on churches.

A separatist group in Zanzibar, Uamsho (Awakening), has been blamed by some but authorities have not linked the group to the violence.

Uamsho wants the archipelago to end its 1964 union with mainland Tanzania, which is ruled as a secular state, and wants to introduce Islamic Sharia law in Zanzibar.