Police arrest Iranian-trained suspects allegedly planning attack in Kenya

Suspects Abubakar Sadiq Louw (left) and Yassin Sambai Juma  have admitted to conspiring to mount terror attacks against western targets in Kenya.

Nairobi: Police have arrested two Kenyans suspected to have been recruited into an Iranian terror ring to carry terror strikes targeting both locals and foreigners in the country.

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet said the two, Abubakar Sadiq Louw (69) and Yassin Sambai Juma (25), were instructed to recruit more Kenyans into the ring.

Police are interrogating the suspects with an aim of squeezing more information from them.

Abubakar is a senior figure in Nairobi Shiite community. According to police sources, he was arrested on October 29 after a long intensive police investigation. He admitted recruiting young Kenyans to spy and mount terror attacks in Nairobi. He was working on behalf of the Qods Force, the clandestine overseas military wing of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which carries out the terror activities worldwide.

Juma on the other hand is one of the students recruited by Sadiq. During the probe, Sadiq also divulged to the investigators that he arranged for Juma to travel to Iran and introduced him to the Qods Force contact, nicknamed "Parsa".  “Parsa" subsequently gave Juma a set of tasks and Western targets for future terror attacks in Nairobi.  Police arrested Juma on the November 19, upon his returned to Nairobi after having undertaken some military training in Iraq.

Sadiq's and Juma's arrest came after months of secret intensive work by Kenyan Police, in cooperation with the other law enforcement agencies in Africa. The Iranian Qods Force has been trying to operate in Kenya for years to recruit young Muslims and train them to smuggle explosives in the country. However they are encountering rigorous efforts by Kenya Police and law enforcement agencies to foil terror activity in the country.

The police are working closely with the local Shiite Muslim community to determine threats and locate anyone who may be working for the Iranian government against Kenyan interests.

The last attempted attack by the Qods force in Kenya was foiled in January 2012, when two Iranian operatives were arrested with 15kg explosives. The two men, Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi, were tried and convicted of committing acts intended to cause serious harm, including planning attacks in Kenya.