Kenya’s Counter Terrorism Unit is hunting down Abdullahi Banati, a member of the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia, Harakat Shabaab Mujahideen. Banati is a member of the terrorist groups intelligence wing Amniyaat and is accused of masterminding the Hararar RCIED attack targeting General Service Unit members (GSU) on 12th October 2019. Intelligence assets reports indicate that Banati has been deployed to man a section of the Kenyan border with Somalia.
Credible intelligence reports warn that Banati is the commander of a team of Al-Shabaab operatives deployed on the porous Kenya-Somalia border and his key goal is to target security personnel on patrol duties besides targeting innocent Kenyan citizens along the border.
Counter terrorism operatives following on intelligence leads have traced activities of Banati and a small cell under his command. Preliminary reports warn that Banati who has been dispatched by the terrorist group alongside other operatives and are responsible for the cross-border incursions into the Kenyan-Somalia border prefectures. His cell has been linked for a number of attacks on the Kenyan border County of Garissa.
Reports further reveal that the Amniyaat cell leader, planned the attack on GSU officers with the help of his accomplices operating within the Dadaab refugee complex. This is not the first time that the refugee complex has been adversely mentioned in terrorism events.
Dadaab refugee complex has been at the centre of terror activities happening along the border counties with Somalia. The refugee complex played host to terror operatives who carried out the Garissa University attack in 2015 and also allowed the passage of attackers of the Westgate attack in 2013 and the Dusit D2 attack in Nairobi’s Riverside on January 15, 2019.
Intelligence reports indicate that Abdullahi Banati joined the Somalia based Al-Shabaab in 2012. He was involved in the attempted attack on a Baure KDF camp in in June 2015 where Al-Shabaab fighters tried to stage an ambush assault on the Forward Operating Base (FOB) leading to a fierce firefight that left eleven Al-Shabaab militants killed.
During the attack, Banati was injured and successfully retreated to Somalia to recuperate. However, he resurfaced in 2018 after being deployed by Al-Shabaab to command a small cell/unit of militants and tasked to carry out attacks along the Kenyan border with Somalia.
Kenya’s counter terrorism operatives are calling on the members of the public with information on Abdullahi Banati to come forward and report immediately in order to aid in investigations into the terror network largely operating in Garissa besides preempting and averting possible attacks in the Kenya-Somalia border prefectures.
