Gilgil school ‘was teaching radical Islam’

By STEVE MKAWALE

Most parents who had enrolled their children at Al-salaam Integrated School in Gilgil, Nakuru County, were unaware that their children were being taught a radical form of Islam.

An investigator with the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit told The Standard that for the past eight months, the Islamic curriculum at the school that was shut down by the Government on Tuesday was based on pure Wahhabism.

“Wahhabism – whose origin is in Saudi Arabia – teaches children that all those who are not Wahhabi are non-believers,” said an officer privy to the investigations and who sought anonymity.

The Government ordered the school closed on the grounds that it was operating illegally after County Director of Education Mathew Amboka turned down a request to have it registered.

The source said yesterday that the founders of the school had gone underground, and it is believed that at least ten youths from the school had been recruited to join Al-Shabaab in the past eight months.

“There are teaching materials indicating that the school followed the Saudi curriculum, which advocates and inculcates Wahhabism. This is a far more radical interpretation of Islam than the moderate Sufi school that older generations of Muslims follow,” he said.

Spread radicalisation

The source said the aim of the school was to spread radicalisation of Somalia’s youth in the country by avoiding major urban centers like Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru, and influencing the region’s fragile security situation.

“Al-Shabaab, which means youth in Arabic, has realised the potential of Somalia’s young and are working to capitalise on it in such schools,” said the security source.