Five arrested over links to al Shabaab including Yemen and Syrian nationals

Five people, including three minors, are being held by anti-terror police over suspected links to the al Shabaab militia group.Officers from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit said the suspects were intercepted in Lamu on their to Somalia and substances used to manufacture explosives impounded.Police accuse the five of taking part in a training to join the Somalia-based insurgency group. The suspects, including Yemen and Syrian nationals, whose passports indicate they are businessmen, have been in the country for the last six months.According to a senior ATPU officer, the group has been training in two mosques in Mombasa and South Coast.“We received information about the group and conducted an operation where we caught up with them on the Mombasa-Lamu highway,” the officer said.Among materials allegedly seized from the group include several pictures of people wearing al Shabaab outfits.Among those arrested are Mr Aziz Abdulrazul a Yemen national who police say has been masquerading as a dentist and Mr Abdo Almohamad Mohamad a Syrian. The minors arrested are students in secondary schools in Coast.The group was yesterday afternoon flown to Nairobi for further interrogation. According to sources, a group of youths has already left the country to Somalia to join al Shabaab.Meanwhile, the Kenya Muslim National Advisory Council (Kemnac) has said the recruitment of youths into al Shabaab was more widespread than thought.Reacting to a special report on terrorism in yesterday’s Daily Nation, council chairman Sheikh Juma Ngao accused some of his colleagues of politicising the issueTwo weeks ago, Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) treasurer Sheikh Hassan Omar listed three mosques in Coast as responsible for the recruitment of youth to the terror group. “If the government is to investigate the issue, it should not only focus on the mentioned mosques but trace the problem back to 2005 when Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government president Sheikh Shariff Ahmed was hosted in Nairobi many times by Mombasa-based preachers,” Sheikh Ngao said. However, Sheikh Omar challenged anyone with evidence of any cleric’s involvement in the recruitment to produce it. “We as CIPK have never met Sheikh Shariff nor do we support the war in Somalia in any way be it in support of or against the government,” he said. Sheikh Omar added that the decision to call for government intervention was reached after the council met over 100 other clerics and religious scholars in Mombasa to discuss the role of the mosques in the in the recruitment.

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