The United States (US) Department of State and Federal Bureau of Investigation have partnered with Kenya in creating the first Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). The JTTF will be the first of its kind to be located outside of the US.
Kenyan-led JTTF will be a multi-agency counterterrorism investigative force in Nairobi and was incubated following the January 2019 al Shabaab attack on Nairobi upmarket DusitD2 hotel. The JTTF-K will be instrumental in handling the counterterrorism element of the country’s security at a time where there are growing threats posed by al Shabaab both in the country and East African region.
The task force will comprise of 42 selected Kenyan investigators who are set to receive intensive 12-week counterterrorism training at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia. The investigators will be exposed to the FBI’s training expertise combined with the State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism’s (CT Bureau) capacity-building efforts.
The significance of the training to the Kenyan side is to equip the investigators with the needed capabilities backed by the integral FBI methodologies that the US-based JTTF use especially in the handling of counterterrorism intelligence shared with and within the Kenyan government.
The trained JTTF investigators will establish the task force that will implement security matters deemed of importance by Kenya’s National Security Council and the mentorship of an FBI Special Agent mentor.
The JTTF-K is being funded by the Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism under the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund, which was established by Congress to build the law enforcement capacity of partner nations on the frontlines of terrorism. It is part of a comprehensive program with Kenya to promote terrorism investigations and prosecutions, enhance crisis response, and strengthen border security.
