The Somali terror group, Harakat Al-Shabaab Mujahideen (HSM) is planning to conduct coordinated large scale attacks on different security and defense forces camps and bases in the area between the coastal tip and the center of the border with Somalia. This attack is targeting various Kenya Defense Forces bases inside Somalia and those along the border inside Kenya.
The terrorist group has been amassing hundreds of heavily armed terrorists along the border since the end of the heavy rains seasons and throughout August. They have also moved their best weaponry and teams including foreign commanders from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula, and Afghanistan who came to Somalia early 2017 through Yemen.
Approximately 28 modified vehicles, mostly Toyota Landcruiser pickups, have been moved from Buale and Jiliib in the same period towards new operating bases near the border with Kenya.
Sightings of militants along the border, besides several cross-border attacks have been recorded in the same period.
The terrorist group mission this October is to revenge the large-scale counter extremist’s operation launched by Government of Kenya in Somalia “Operation Linda Inchi”. The operation wiped out the terror groups bases and camps in Southern Somalia.
Unfortunately, the terror group has managed to establish new operating and logistics support bases in Gedo and Juba, worse several inside Kenya. The October attack is meant to showcase these bases through Psywar, and purport that Operation Linda Inchi was in vain.
The terrorist group has hundreds of fighters outside Kolbio and other geographically strategic areas in Southern Somalia. They want to use the routes Kenya Defense Forces used when they deployed into Somalia, a reverse engineering tactic. They’ are already filming these convoys for the Psychological Warfare operations.
Kenya Defense Forces, KDF and the intelligence agency in Nairobi should robustly preempt the impending attack. Preemptive strikes targeting the new bases and cells operating in Gedo and Juba besides those in Kenya, should be ramped up.
