Government lists 35 individuals aiding Al-Shabaab

The government has a list of 35 individuals from Mandera recruited by Al-Shabaab to aid the Somali-based terror group in carrying out attacks in Kenya.

North Eastern Regional Commissioner Mohamud Saleh said that the individuals well known to the locals have raised families in Kenya and they cross into the country and return to Somalia at will.

Addressing peace committee elders from six sub-counties of Mandera County in Mandera town, Saleh said unless leaders from the area are ready to expose and condemn the group, the war against terrorism and specifically Al-Shabaab, will never be won.

“We must be honest with ourselves here. Unless you leaders come out and take the lead in restoring and maintaining security in Mandera, the region will never recover from insecurity,” Saleh told the elders.

He said it was a pity that North Eastern has spent time and resources since independence in fighting crime and insecurity.

“For how long are we going to talk about insecurity in the region? First it was Shifta war, then the banditry and now the Al-Shabaab menace. We cannot be calling and using our resources on security meetings. Where are we going as a region? These are the hard questions leaders from the region should start asking themselves otherwise we shall perish,” Saleh posed.

“We cannot pretend that we don’t know where the problem is. The Al-Shabaab menace is being fueled by our own youth. Even if we blame it on Somalia, the ring leaders are our youth. I have the names of the youth who have been recruited by Al-Shabaab. We know their families and even their wives. They cross over annually to visit their families and nobody reports to authorities,” he added.

He reiterated the government’s mission to carry out a massive security operation in areas prone to Al Shabaab attacks among them Ijara that borders the Boni forest and the Mandera border towns of Elwak, Lafey, Kotulo among others.

Earlier, while addressing the county security committee and those from the six sub-counties, Saleh said that security agents in the area have made tremendous strides in suppressing the Al-Shabaab menace in the area and the region at large.

“You have done a lot of work to suppress Al-Shabaab activities in the region but we are not out of the woods yet. The challenges are still there particularly in Mandera East, Arabia, Entire Lafey and Elwak Sub-counties that borders war torn Somalia,” he said.

Saleh said 90 percent of Mandera County is peaceful apart from the stretch from Arabia to Kotulo where he termed as “volatile, unpredictable, challenging and sometimes ambiguous since you don’t know whom you dealing with or where they [Al-Shabaab] are coming from”.

He said Al-Shabaab operatives use the area to carry out incursions by attacking security vehicles, plant landmines, target security installations and communication masts before retreating back to Somalia.

The regional commissioner noted the government is reviewing its strategies to come up with new methods to combat terrorism, radicalization and violent extremism in the region.