Security agencies want members of the public to be more pro-active and step up their levels of involvement and alertness in the wake of increased terror threats.
Specifically, entrepreneurs running hotels and lodging facilities should endeavor to obtain full details of their occupants and report any suspicious characters to the police for inspection and identity authentication.
Proprietors of businesses, shopping malls, places of worship, educational institutions and other areas frequented by the public should ensure they have functional CCTV cameras under constant monitoring to detect danger.
Such public places should employ competent security guards who are well trained on screening procedures and identifying threats, police say.
Passenger Service Vehicle (PSV) operators and cab drivers need to monitor and have a better understanding of their passengers and the luggage they transport.
They should be alert not to allow anyone to leave luggage behind, says Police Spokesman Charles Owino. Any suspicious individuals or parcels should be reported to the police.
Further, cargo and parcel handling and transportation companies should have thorough screening mechanisms and procedures that help them understand contents of the cargo they handle.
Such enterprises should ensure every parcel has an identifiable owner through accountable record keeping of senders and recipients.
“Follow up investigations after the dusitD2 attack led to the arrests of individuals whose national identity cards and phones were used by the terror suspects. People need to be careful,” said Owino.
Learning from this, individuals should avoid offering their national identity cards for registration of Sim-cards to people they do not know.
“If someone has lost their national IDs, they should confirm with the service provider if there are any other Sim-cards which have been registered fraudulently using the ID. Likewise, people should avoid volunteering their phones for use by strangers.”
Owino said all cases of disappearances of family members, friends, workmates, schoolmates and neighbors should be reported to the police.
“It is a criminal offence to fail to report on knowledge of a person who is involved in terrorism activities. Consequently, people should report on persons who have travelled to join Al-Shabaab in Somalia and other terrorist organizations across the globe,” he added.
Owino said any suspected foreigner who is believed to have sneaked into the country should be reported to the nearest government agency or office.
Similarly, persons who are believed to have come back from Jihad theatres like Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia should be reported immediately.
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The public have the responsibility to report any public official involved in corruption for personal gains at the expense of national security.
“Whereas public support has come in handy in disrupting radicalization, recruitment and planned terror attacks thus far, more needs to be done to shield the country from terrorism.”
He argued, with the evolution of terrorism threat, Kenya has also evolved – both as a target of terrorist attacks and in its adoption of more inclusive and productive multiagency approaches.
Public support and participation in pointing out terror threats, and robust multi-agency security arrangements have been key in addressing the terror threat in the country.
Police argue terrorism is here to stay given the continued threat from the region.
Emergence of ISIS in Kenya….
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has started gaining a foothold in the country through substantial online recruitment and using Kenya as a recruitment, transit and facilitation hub.
However, territorial losses in Syria, Iraq, Libya and other ISIL Jihad theatres, as well as joint security investigations and disruptions in Kenya, have weakened ISIL significance in the country.
Security agencies say they have tracked local ISIL cells and their external networks, leading to some major disruptions.
In February 2018, police within Moi’s Bridge in Eldoret arrested an ISIL returnee from Somalia called Yusuf Odwori Ahmed alias Saifullah. Prior to his arrest, Saifullah had been engaging in online dissemination of extremist ISIL material calling for youth to travel to join jihadi groups.
Security agencies also thwarted a planned anthrax attack after arresting Ali Muhammed Abdi alias Abu Fidaa April 29, 2016. Abu Fidaa was a medical intern at Makueni District Hospital. Investigations had indicated his involvement in ISIL activities since mid-2015 and pointed to plans to conduct an anthrax attack in Kenya.
Abu Fidaa was also a key facilitator in the ISIL network within the region. He had an extensive ISIL recruitment and facilitation network traversing counties and countries – Mombasa, Wajir, Nairobi, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Syria. Investigations established that Abu Fidaa was involved in the receiving, translating and disseminating propaganda and recruitment materials from ISIL operatives in Syria to individuals within the East African region.
The operation also led to arrests of his wife, Nuseiba Mohammed Haji alias Umul Fidaa, and other members of the network leading to a significant disruption of ISIL activities in Kenya.
In August 2018, Kenyan security agencies, in liaison with other international partners, uncovered an intricate ISIL financial facilitation network in the country.
Waleed Ahmed Zain, the key mastermind of a financial facilitation network spanning across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, was apprehended by the police alongside his collaborator Halima Adan Ali.
Following the disruption, American authorities designated Waleed as a terror entity.
The existing ISIL cells have faded away since then as intelligence gathered from interrogations and investigations on Waleed led to the arrests and disruptions of other ISIL recruitment and facilitation conduits.
While ISIL still maintains some virtual online manifestation in Kenya, albeit on a lower scale, its tangible recruitment and facilitation networks have largely been disrupted, a police report says.
Within the previous three decades, Kenyan counterterrorism tables have turned from passive spectatorship to synergized counter action.
The foreign operatives laid down the infrastructure that would culminate into the attack that completely changed the face of terrorism in Kenya. The resultant counter-terrorism measures were mainly US-led, with Kenyan authorities playing a key support role.
Although most of the foreign Al-Qaeda operatives involved in the 1998 attack were disrupted, and their front organizations closed, a few local and regional remnants went under the radar.
They included Harun Fazul and Swaleh Nabhan who would ultimately coordinate the 2002 Kikamabala attacks on an Israeli airliner and hotel. The ensuing counter-terrorism operations forced the two to flee to Somalia.
Between 2006 and 2007, following the collapse of the Islamic Courts Union and the rise of Al-Shabaab, which attracted some regional foreign fighters, Fazul and Nabhan established a base for training foreign fighters and embedding Al-Qaeda ideology in Somalia with the ultimate objective of spreading it across the region.
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