Suspected al Shabaab terrorists have today conducted a twin grenade attack targeting a food kiosk located near Equity Bank in Wajir town in Northeastern Kenya. The attack unfortunately led to the deaths of two persons and wounded nine others. The attack comes hours after Kenyan security personnel unraveled a major terror plot thus pre-empting a mass-casualty attack. It is this unraveling of the plot that prompted the terrorists in an act of desperation and futility to attack a food kiosk in Wajir town.
A terror cell made up of both local and international jihadists was uncovered by Kenyan security officials and the cell members were apprehended except for two who managed to escape the dragnet. The terror cell had a safe house in Wajir town where they stockpiled weapons including AK-47 assault rifles, IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and bomb components. They also used the safe house to assemble IEDs that would have been used to conduct terror attacks across the country.
The terrorists planned to conduct a series of simultaneous car bomb attacks targeting government targets and crowded places in Mombasa, Nairobi, Nakuru and Garissa. Some of the cell members were tasked with suicide missions.
Strategic intelligence had given prior warnings that Al Shabaab was planning a spectacular attack so as to prove that it still has the capacity to inflict damage on Kenya even after KDF forces substantially degraded its military capabilities in Somalia. The terror group also seeks to use mass-casualty attacks to reinforce its terrorist agenda besides reposing confidence to its members and sympathizers. SIS had warned that Al Shabaab terrorists planned to attack Nairobi, Lamu, Mombasa and other Kenyan cities. SIS would like to advice the relevant authorities to utilize open source intelligence to pre-empt and mitigate terror attacks.
