By Maxwell Masava/Roy Agoya

A Kenyan suspected of working for Al-Shabaab has been arrested at the Kenya-Somalia border and brought to Nairobi for interrogation.

The man produced the Kenyan identity card number 9424444 indicating he was Alfred Kibet Kosgei from Endebess in the Rift Valley. Police doubt his identity and are now pursuing leads he has given them about where he was born and whether indeed he is a Kenyan citizen.

The man was arrested while travelling on a 52-seater bus called Faafi.

The bus had stopped for a routine check at a police roadblock mounted by Administration Police at Alijugur some 60 kilometres from the Somali border.

Preliminary findings indicated he started his journey in Nairobi and spent a night in Garissa town before boarding the bus for Alijugur. He left his luggage in the custody of the guesthouse where he spent the night.

“It appears he was just going to meet somebody and travel back to Garissa,” a source close to the investigations told the Star. The room at the guesthouse where the man spent the night has since been sealed off as the police search it for more clues.

Police became curious about the suspect because he was carrying a satellite phone. Police have impounded it to find out who he was in contact with. A satellite phone is a portable handset that connects through satellites in space rather than terrestrial masts. A satellite phone can function anywhere as it bypasses local telecoms systems so it cannot be tapped by security agencies.

Satphones are popular on expeditions into remote areas where terrestrial cellular service is unavailable, during disasters when the regular phone systems are destroyed or congested, or in war zones. In Kenya, satphone owners have to register with the CCK.

The man, who claimed he had served in the Ugandan Army, was also found with a digital camera with photos of classified government installations including Nyayo House and several ministries, military barracks as well as photos of Muthurwa Market and Machakos bus station that are usually packed with people.

Police Spokesman Erick Kiraithe said the man was escorted under tight security from Garissa to Nairobi for interrogation by the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit headed by Nicholas Kamwende.

“Let us wait for his identification first before we issue a statement,” said Kiraithe who did not want to discuss the details.

Government spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua said the suspect had already been handed over to the Ugandan authorities.

On Tuesday, Kenyan authorities handed over to Uganda a man suspected of collaborating in the Sunday night bombings in Kampala. Ali Isa Ssenkumba is a Ugandan born at Butambala, Mpigi in central Uganda.

Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the two bomb attacks in Kampala that killed 76 people and injured hundreds watching the World Cup final at two venues. A Kenyan was among the casualties. An unexploded bomb vest for a suicide bomber was found in another Kampala bar on Monday.

The militia group said it targeted Uganda because its troops make up the bulk of the African Union Amisom force propping the transitional government in Somalia.

The heads of two assumed suicide bombers have been found at the Kampala bomb sites. One head allegedly had a ‘Somali’ appearance while the other looked like a central Ugandan.

In the 1990s, the ADF rebel group operated in western Uganda from bases in Eastern Congo. It carried out grenade attacks in Kampala in 1997. It had an Islamic fundamentalist agenda and several of its leaders were trained by Osama bin Laden in Sudan before he moved to Afghanistan in 1996. The ADF recruited mainly among Muslims in central and eastern Uganda.

The ADF has not been active for the past decade but Uganda police chief Gen Kale Kayihura speculated on Monday that ADF might have cooperated with Al-Shabaab in the Sunday bombings.

Kenyan security forces have been on high alert since the bombings in Kampala. Additional soldiers and policemen have been deployed along all border points to avert terrorist attacks in the country.

The African Union on Tuesday announced that it had deployed an additional 2,000 soldiers inside Somalia to tackle the militia insurgents.

Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said border points in North Eastern Province have been sealed off by security teams to deal with any with any possible attacks by Somalia-based terrorist groups. Iteere was speaking as he continued his three-day tour of police stations in the Rift Valley.

So far, Ugandan authorities have arrested seven people in connection with the Sunday bombing attacks.The Uganda police is working closely with other regional and international security agents to unravel the bombings.

Kenya has reportedly sent four anti-terror detectives to Kampala to assist in investigations.

Uganda police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba has declined to release the identities or nationalities of the other six suspects in custody, saying the police are yet to fully interrogate the men.

Source: Nairobi Star

Some of the 300 bomb detonators that police recovered from a suspect in Ongata Rongai, Nairobi July 10, 2010. Police arrested two men, one of them a pastor and recovered bomb material in their car July 17, 2010. Photo/FILE

By DOMINIC WABALA and DAVE OPIYO
Posted Saturday, July 17 2010 at 18:40

Kenya police have arrested two men, one of them a pastor, and recovered bomb material after they intercepted a car they were travelling in.

Nairobi Provincial Police Officer Anthony Kibuchi said the two were stopped by police, acting on a tip off, on Kiambu road, Nairobi Saturday afternoon.

“Two people have been intercepted on Kiambu Road at the junction of getting into Runda. They were driving a Nissan Sunny car and in the car police officers found one kilogramme of ammonium nitrate, a safety fuse and a detonator … that’s a complete bomb,” he said.

“They have been arrested and are under interrogation.”

Puzzled

He said the police were puzzled by the incident since they could not explain why “a pastor had these explosives”.

The pastor belongs to a church in Githunguri.

The incident comes just a week after police shot dead a man and retrieved 300 detonators from him in Ongata Rongai, Nairobi.

The discovery comes barely two days after The Nation unearthed how easy it was to obtain commercial explosives in the Kenyan capital.

For Sh1,000, reporters from the newspaper bought enough material to make a bomb powerful enough to blow up a large room. The sale of such substances is supposed to be tightly controlled in law.

Bomb expert Charles Juma said commercial detonators were available for Sh5 in Tanzania, which has a large mining industry. The detonators are readily sold on the black market in Kenya and Uganda as well.

In the controlled shops in Nairobi, they cost Sh150.

Dead end

Mr Juma demonstrated how, using ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser available in the market in unlimited quantities, a person with some training can make a powerful bomb using the detonators and fuses illegally being sold in the country.

A month ago, a prayer meeting cum No rally in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park turned tragic after two explosions tore through the crowd killing 130 people and injuring many others.

Police have since said that investigations into the incident have reached a dead end.

Last Sunday, a series of powerful explosions went off in Kampala last Sunday as patrons were watching the World Cup Final, killing 76 people and injuring an equal number.

An unexploded suicide vest was also found, meaning that the bombers wanted to inflict even more damage. The Somali extremist group, Al Shabaab, has claimed responsibility.

Source: Daily Nation

By Mugumo Munene,

Kenya warned that terrorists linked to the al-Shabaab militia group were about to stage attacks in the East African region three days before the blasts that left 76 people dead in Kampala, Uganda.

Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetang’ula told the Associated Press that there was credible intelligence that the fighters were upping their game and appealed for help from the United States to keep the militants at bay.

The minister said in the interview with the American wire service that the situation in Somalia was “very, very dire” and that Somalia’s immediate neighbours, including Kenya, faced potential attacks from the militants.

He said that veteran insurgents from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan had relocated to Somalia in large enough numbers to worry the international community.

“There have been Afghans, there have been Pakistanis, there have been certain Middle Eastern nationalities, quite a number. Intelligence reports indicate that there’s quite a cocktail of them,” Mr Wetang’ula told The Associated Press last week.

Mr Wetang’ula has complained that the US and other rich nations are doing little to help prop the government in Somalia and to fight off the militia group.

“They spend billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With just a small fraction of that amount, we can strengthen the TFG and capacitate them with tanks, aerial power, armoured vehicles so that they are able to secure their people. They run on a war economy,” said Mr Wetang’ula.

“A country is no country if it cannot guarantee security to its people. Somalia runs on a war economy. The US is not doing enough and is not willing to sufficiently listen to the concerns.”

Forewarn the militia

Contacted by the Sunday Nation, Mr Wetang’ula said that it would be “inappropriate” for him to disclose the information Kenyan intelligence officers have since it would forewarn the militia group.

But, asked whether the Kampala attacks would have been averted had the international community acted, he said “possibly yes”.

He spoke ahead of the African Union Summit which begins in Kampala on July 25 and whose theme of maternal and child healthcare is highly likely to be overshadowed by the events of last Sunday’s terror attack on football fans watching the World Cup final in the city.

Al-Shabaab has since claimed responsibility for the attacks.

“In the face of what happened it would be inappropriate either to the terrorist or even to us. Let’s leave it at that. We have intelligence and we are using it and perpetrators must know that no one will sit back and watch them cause mayhem,” the minister said.

The minister said that some Kenyan residents of Somali origin were under constant watch but said the country had no problem with those whose status is properly verified by authorities.

“Some are on a watch list. We are continuously on a high alert to ensure that whatever information we get . . . we must evaluate it and see how valuable it is. Even when a mad man comes in, we must look for a lucid moment in his madness,” said Mr Wetang’ula.

Somalia has been without a government since 1991 and various international efforts to establish a government in Mogadishu have largely floundered.

The Transitional Federal Government has been unable to establish its authority beyond the area protected by African Union peacekeepers and has repeatedly asked for help.

In March, three mosques in Nairobi were named in a United Nations investigation report as recruiting fighters for Somalia’s Islamist groups and their preachers marked by authorities for preaching extremist messages.

Wealthy clerics

The UN report also linked a community of wealthy clerics who also run businesses to the three mosques.

“Members of al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam travel with relative freedom to and from Nairobi, where they raise funds, engage in recruitment and obtain treatment for wounded fighters. A key pillar of this support network is a community of wealthy clerics-cum-businessmen, linked to a small number of religious centres notorious for their links to radicalism,” said the report.

The UN investigators said they received “credible, detailed and specific information” concerning one of the preacher’s participation early in 2009 in meetings with representatives of armed groups from Somalia, together with prominent members of the Eastleigh business community in Nairobi to discuss logistical issues and raise funds for the armed struggle.

The preacher – who we cannot name for legal reasons – is said to have changed his tone to support Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government.

“In January 2010, he took a step further and denounced the takfiri practice of designating other Muslims as apostates in order to justify spilling their blood, posing a direct challenge to al-Shabaab,” said the report, which has since been transmitted to the UN Security Council.

One of the preachers operating from what the UN report calls an informal centre in Eastleigh is quoted as having said in one of his sermons: “Funding the Jihad is an individual duty for every Muslim. If you cannot physically join the Jihad, then it is mandatory that you finance it. The small amounts of money collected from you for the Jihad are not donations for charity but an individual duty incumbent upon you.”

The investigators also received information that the leaders of this group hosted al-Shabaab leaders from Mogadishu on several occasions last year.

One of the key leaders of the centre is reported to be a 31-year-old cleric whom authorities believe obtained Kenyan papers by false pretence.

Another one is said to travel freely between Nairobi and Mogadishu and regularly exchanges currency notes with fellow recruiters on the Internet.

“One such (Internet) session audited by the Monitoring Group raised $20,000, to be remitted to a bank account in the United Arab Emirates. One particularly generous donor was rewarded with a promise that the next suicide bomber in Somalia would pray for her before going to his death.

During other sessions, held in the aftermath of the twin suicide bombings of the African Union peacekeeping (AMISOM) force headquarters on September 17, 2009, (the preacher) kept listeners informed of the casualty toll and thanked them for their contributions to the struggle,” says the report.

And six days to the bombing, regional heads of state under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development issued a strongly worded statement indicating that a military experts’ assessment of the situation in Somalia showed escalating violence.

The heads of state expressed serious concern that the deteriorating security situation in Somalia posed serious threat to the peace, security and stability to the people and government of Somalia, the region and the international community and called for an “urgent response to the threat”.

The coordinated explosions in Kampala followed repeated threats by al-Shabaab to strike Uganda for its contribution to the 6,100-strong AMISOM force deployed in Somalia.

Mr Wetang’ula also alluded to a possible role of Eritrea, which the UN report says has been offering help to al-Shabaab.

“It is difficult to speak with finality but the government of Eritrea has been messing up in Somalia. The African Union has recommended sanctions and the UN has sanctioned them. We believe they have no money of their own but surprisingly they are putting all this effort. There could be a third hand,” said Mr Wetang’ula.

Source: Daily Nation