Mandera terror suspect Salim Abubakar flown to Nairobi for interrogation

Kenyan military personnel and Red Cross volunteers carry bodies of people killed at a quarry in a village in Korome, outside the border town of Mandera. (Photo:Reuters)

One of the wanted terror suspects who were arrested in Mandera over last November's massacre in which 64 people were killed was Friday flown to Nairobi.

Salim Abubakar Kitonga was flown under tight security and handed over to the Anti Terror Police Unit.

The ATPU officials picked him up from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi upon arrival aboard a commercial flight and drove off with him evading journalists who had been waiting outside.

"We will know the way forward after the interrogation is complete," said an official at the unit who asked not to be named.

Security was beefed up in Mandera Town following the arrest, amid fears of attacks. The town has borne the brunt of many terror attacks in the past.

Kitonga was arrested alongside two others by officers who had been trailing him on Thursday.

There were plans to drive him to Nairobi but officials termed it dangerous and opted for air transport.

All social joints were secured even as schools bore the effects of the attacks, after teachers from outside the county refused to resume duty in January, citing security fears.

Kitonga is a Kenyan by birth but the other two suspects are of Somali origin.

Mandera Police Commander Job Boronjo said the suspects were cooperating well with the police and that other wanted Al-Shabaab sympathisers and sponsors would soon be arrested in the area.

"He has been recruiting terror suspects from this area and regional countries to join Al-Shabaab," said Boronjo.

He added that Kitonga had been facilitating the movement of new non-Somali recruits into Somalia through Bula Hawa and that he had been living at a mosque in Mandera Town.

“There are reports that he planned the two attacks that left 64 people dead late last year, but he is with us for further interrogations before he is taken to court,” said Boronjo.

The other suspects were not immediately identified. Their whereabouts were also not disclosed.

Suspected Al-Shabaab militants, November 2014, killed at least 28 people on a bus in Arabiya area, Mandera County.

The heavily armed militias were reported to have waylaid a Nairobi-bound bus between Mandera and Arabia.

Two weeks later, Al Shabaab militants massacred 36 at a quarry in Mandera.