Security News By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
Kenya and Uganda have stepped up joint operations aimed at keeping on check the infiltrations of Al-Shabaab Islamist terrorist from the neighboring Somalia.
The efforts has yielded in score of suspected terrorists agents being nabbed over the weekend after being fished out of their hideouts in both Nairobi and the country’s coastal town of Mombasa. Some of them suspects in connection to the July 11, bombing of a crowded public joint in the Ugandan capital, Kampala have since been flown to that country to be enjoined in criminal charges with their accomplices already in custody in Uganda.
Reports emerging from the Kenya’s coastal town of Lamu an Island on the Indian Ocean, says Kenya Anti-Terrorism Police Unit {ATPU} disclosed at the weekend that they were holding twelve suspects they found with materials for bombs and instruction documents targeting certain installation and buildings in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The discovery, the ATPU says was made at Mpeketoni location on Lamu Island in the Indian Ocean. The Island is the closest Kenyan location to the troubled Somalia border.
Itrher sources the suspect arrested in Nairobi include a wonan and the three children in whose house suspected foreigners linked to terrorists were found hiding.
At the same time, two suspected terrorists’ agents have been arrested in Mombasa on suspected criminal, offences connected to the July 11 bombing of a crowded public joint in Kampala which resulted in the death of 76 people. They were immediately flown to Uganda where they are expected to be enjoined in criminal charges alongside their accomplices already in custody in that country.
The two were seized fro their operational hideout at the weekend in Nyali suburb of the coastal town of Mombasa.
Also in the capital, Nairobi, the police reported that they were holding six people in connection with suspected terrorist’s activities.
The other suspects in Lamu case said to be Kenyans, and the police have confirmed that they still interrogating them with the view to finding out their mission was hatched and planned and who is behind it
He group also had bomb making materials, which the sleuths believe they got from the neighboring Somalia.
“We do not know their mission, but all I can say is that we have succeeded in averting something very serious,” a police source is quoted by the STANDARD of having said this.
The suspects were arrested on Saturday morning and were later brought to Mombasa, where they were until last Sunday being grilled. And after interrogation, the suspects are said to have disclosed the location of their accomplices, whom were later picked up from their hideout in Malindi Town.
The police said they got the tips on the arrival of Tanzanian before they swiftly moved into action.
The arrests came barely a month after terrorist linked to Al-Shabaab detonated bombs in Kampala.Uganda killing more than 76 people. At least ten Kenyans are being held in Uganda over the bombing at a public joint on July 11,2010.
The latest arrests were of one Suleiman Abdi Hamed who was nabbed from his Nairobi South C Estate House in an operation mounted by teams of hooded policemen led by detectives. Te arrest three days after the Mombasa arrests over the same crime confessed by their accomplices that they were getting training in Somalia.
The arrests came after a month long of thorough investigations. The ATPU Chief at the Coast Elijah Tirop said the suspects are of Pakistani ANS Kenyan descent, adding that some seven vehicles suspected to have been stolen were also recovered in the suspect compound.
“I can confirm that the two suspect have been arrested in connection with the Kampala bombing and they will also take to Uganda an charged.” said Tirop.
He disclosed that to facilitate the arrest was a joint effort with the help of international security agencies and Kenyans sleuths. The agencies had been tipped by the accomplices of the suspects now in custody in Uganda.
Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com