North Eastern Regional Coordinator Ambassador Mohamud Saleh. [Photo/Kenya News Agency]
The government is in possession of the list of locals in Mandera recruited by the Al-Shabaab, the Somali based terror group to carry out attacks in the country.
North Eastern regional commissioner Mohamud Saleh said that the group that mainly comprises of young local boys are hiding within their communities where they carry out attacks and retreat into their ‘comfort zones’ within their localities.
“We have found out these are local boys who are fighting us and they are hiding within their communities. There is no way you can put a landmine on the roadside and disappear into thin air,” Saleh said
“I have the list of names of the boys given to me by members of the public. These are Kenyan boys in Al-Shabaab that are hell-bent to frustrate our efforts in combating Al-Shabaab menace in the area. ,” he added.
Speaking in Garissa where he met the county security committee and those of 6 sub-counties, Saleh said that security agents in the area have made tremendous strides in suppressing the Al-Shabaab menace in the area and the region at large.
“You have done a lot of work to suppress Al-Shabaab activities in the region but we are not out of the woods yet. The challenges are still there particularly in Mandera East, Arabia, Entire Lafey and Elwak Sub-counties that borders war-torn Somalia,” he said.
Saleh said 90 percent of Mandera county is peaceful apart from Arabia up to Kotulo where he noted was 'volatile, unpredictable, challenging and sometimes ambiguous because you don’t know whom you dealing with or where they are coming from’.
He said Al-Shabaab operatives use the area to carry out incursions by attacking security vehicles, plant landmines, target security installations and Safaricom masts before retreating back to Somalia adding that ‘what they are doing is to sabotage government activities in this area.
The regional commissioner noted that although the government has used a lot of resources because of the Al-Shabaab menace ‘it is reviewing its strategies and whether we can come up with new ones to combat terrorism, radicalization and violent extremism in the region’.
Saleh who is in a 5 days tour of Mandera and Wajir counties to acquaint himself with emerging challenges in the fight against terrorism is accompanied by the regional security team among them the regional administration police commander senior assistant inspector general Omar Shurie and the Kenya police service regional commander Edward Mwamburi.
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