Red alert over terror

By Philip Mwakio and Cyrus Ombati

Al Shabaab has warned of impending terror attacks on Kenyan cities as government issues a high security alert and ordered measures tightening safety at Coast and Nairobi ahead of Easter celebrations starting Friday.

Just hours after the Coastal attack at a prayer group and revellers at an entertainment join, which alone serves to show the vulnerability of Kenyans in the face of the footloose enemy, Al Shabaab warned its attacks would continue until Kenya Defence Forces pull out of Somalia.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga leads Cabinet ministers and medical officials in consoling a survivor of Saturday terror attack in Mombasa at Coast General Hospital on Sunday. [PHOTO: Maarufu Mohamed/STANDARD]

In a press statement issued from their Mogadishu base, the terror group warned: "The Kenyan public must be aware that the more Kenyan troops continue to persecute innocent Muslims of Somalia, the less secure Kenyan cities will be; and the more oppression the Muslims of Somalia feel, the more constricted Kenyan life will be."

The statement further warned: "Your security depends on our security. It is a long, protracted war and Kenyans must neither harbour a reason for optimism nor hope for triumph."

Without conceding whether the Coastal attacks were its own operation as claimed by Kenya, Al Shabaab went on: "The deteriorating insecurity in Kenyan cities is an embodiment of Kenya’s misguided policies that place foreign interests above its national interests and the security of Western nations above the security of its citizens, thereby wasting the lives of its men and its resources for no real gain."

The government unveiled the new measures as it linked the latest bloody attacks at the Coast to Somalia’s Al Shabaab militia, which KDF is pursuing along with Somalia’s Transitional National Government’s army, but now under the umbrella of African Union Mission in Somalia.

To demonstrate how serious the government is taking the latest threat to national security, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Internal Security Minister George Saitoti and Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere’s deputy, Francis Okonya, flew to Mombasa on one plane to comfort the injured, mourn the death of an innocent Kenyan, and assess the new threat to the country.

"Our police have unearthed very crucial evidence which we cannot share publicly. They are following very good leads as they try to arrest those behind these heinous acts,’’ the PM revealed.

In Nairobi, Iteere declared to the nation: "We have mobilised all units to be on Red Alert now as we inch closer to Easter Holidays."

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Wakulima wahamasishwa kuhuzu mradi wa maziwa