Key Highlights
- 18th August 2015, Kenya’s Inspector General of Police, named three men believed to be major recruiters of young Kenyans to the Islamist terrorist groups especially the Somali’s Al Shabaab.
- Intelligence report that all the three have been operating in Kenya but now are based in Somalia.
- One is believed to have a hand in planning the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi while the other two are radical clerics
- Kenya Police report, “Tracing the disappearing Kenyan youth”, showed how young Kenyans from around the country are being recruited without slight knowledge of their parents.
- Most of the recruits are believed to have gone to Somalia for training and came back to take part in attacks in Kenya.
Assessment
Recently, Islamic State has also become an “attractive group” to vulnerable Kenyan youths.
Three extremists are suspected to be running an underground radicalization campaign to recruit Kenyan youth into Al Shabaab and ISIS terror groups unmasked by the police as dangerous and plead with youths to refrain from anything associated with terrorism activities.
According to IG of Police the trio is behind the disappearance of young men and women suspected to have been spirited away to join the terror militia.
Names of some of the young people recruited into extremism have also been released.
Three of those on the police most-wanted list on suspicion of leading the radicalization and recruitment were named as;
Abdifatah Abubakar Ahmed : Al-Shabaab commander and among the planners of the Westgate attack, co-ordinates recruitment in Kenya’s coastal region where he is said to have big influence, recruits young women as wives for fighters in Somalia. The militant held fraudulent Kenyan ID, deported to Somalia in 2008 for harbouring Harun Faul and Saleh Nabhan. He is married to Zamzam Mohammed Hajj and currently operates from Somalia.
Ramadhan Hamisi Kufungwa : Kufungwa is Abdifatah’s accomplice and was reportedly an imam in-charge at Majengo’s Musa Mosque in Mombasa before he ran away to Somalia after he got wind authorities were looking for him. Kufungwa still has big influence in Mombasa County and the greater Coastal region. He continues to facilitate movement of recruits to Somalia.
Ahmed Iman Ali: Studied Engineering at University of Nairobi, preached at a mosque in Nairobi’s Majengo area. Ali’s influence is reportedly felt in Nairobi’s Majengo slums, where he hails from. He has appeared in Al-Shabaab propaganda videos urging recruits to take up arms and kill innocent Kenyans under the guise of religion. He went to Somalia in 2009.
Summary
Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet said yesterday many youths have run from their homes or dropped out schools and many are suspected to have travelled as far as Syria to join the ISIS.
Youths especially from coastal region, Nairobi, North Eastern and other counties urged to be careful with social media is it has turned a fertile platform for jihadist groups to amplify their radical propaganda as well as a sphere for youth recruitment.
Other Shebab faces of terror
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Public need to stay alert all the time and watch out for these jiggers intentions
Why didnt the police arrest them when they were in Kenya?