Highlight
At least five Al Shabaab militants’ camps have been destroyed at Kenya’s border with Somalia with elements of the Somali based militant group fleeing to Somalia. Several suspected militants were also arrested in the operation that was launched by the Kenya Defence Forces on September 11.
Summary
The KDF operation close to Kenya’s border with Somalia dubbed #OperationLindaBoni was launched to flush out militants it believed were using the area to launch strikes.
In an OSINT report, head of #OperationLindaBoni operation James Ole Serian said that combined security units discovered five different Al Shabaab hideouts inside the forest, including 300-man Jeysh Ayman- an al Shabaab cell which has in the past terrorized the residents of the Kenyan coast and recruited for the terror group.
KDF planes and helicopters have been sweeping the area since the operation began.
Combined security forces with the backing of local officials are still on alert for suspected militants who have fled Boni forest area. There is no assurance that fled militants may not consider retracing their steps back within Kenyan borders.
The security forces have also set up road blocks between Lamu and Mombasa and nine new security camps that secure the expansive forest and are under the KDF, paramilitary police and other security agencies.
Despite the fact that KDF has managed to flush out terrorists from the vast Boni forest, which lies close to Kenya’s border with Somalia, the troops must stay put in the areas that have been Al Shabaab havens for months.
