Drugs, militia activity and politics are the volatile mix that is fuelling new criminal activity in Mombasa and transforming the fragile calm in the coastal city. And as bewildered authorities struggle for containment, new reports keep emerging of fresh attacks, quite different from the terror raids that characterised previous engagements.
Claims by Coast Regional Coordinator Nelson Marwa associating these gangs with paramilitary training would have been easy to dismiss had corroborative testimonies from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) not emerged about training activities in unarmed combat in Manyani, Mshomoroni and Nyali Bridge.