Kenyan police are interrogating two suspects two terror suspects who were arrested while en route to Somalia to join the Islamist militants.
The country’s anti-terrorism police officers have arrested a man and a woman in Madogo area in the coastal region, some 3kms from Garissa County.
“Zacharia Omwenga alias Salma together with her accomplice Abdi Hussein Ali alias Blacky were arrested by officers from the anti terror police unit,” a senior police officer told Xinhua in Garissa on Friday.
The officer said they suspect the Kenyan woman who hails from Mombasa was en route to Somalia will be subjected to through interrogations.
The two suspects who appeared before Garissa Chief Magistrate told the court that
Omwenga was being trafficked to Somalia to be married off to a member of the ‘al-Shabaab’ terror group.
The court also heard that Hussein was to pick her upon arrival at Garissa and then hand her over to another person who was still at large and who would later facilitate her travel to Somalia.
The Mombasa police officers had informed their counterparts in Garissa who laid an ambush for her and later arrested her on Wednesday evening upon arrival.
The police said that upon interrogation, Omwenga admitted that she did not know Garissa and that she was to be picked by a person (Hussein) she did not know but had only communicated with over the phone.
The police later in the evening laid a trap and subsequently arrested Hussein as he went to pick Omwenga who was then due to travel to Somalia to join the militants who have waging a string of terror attacks on both Kenya and Somali governments.
The police requested the court to give them seven days to complete investigations before formally charging the two.
They were granted the request.
‘al-Shabaab’ militants have vowed to stage more attacks on Kenya after the east African nation soldiers made cross border incursion into southern Somalia in 2011 to flush out the insurgents it blamed for kidnappings of tourists.
But Kenya’s security officials have pointed at a possibility that other interests were orchestrating the attacks under the guise of ‘al-Shabaab’, which usually claim responsibility for such attacks.
Source: Diplomat
