Men with suspected links to an al-Qaida-Somali militant group were arrested by Kenyan police on Friday. The men were in the final stages of planning a major terrorist attack which involved major explosives and other weapons. Click below to read more.
Kenyan police said Friday they disrupted a major terrorist attack in its final stages of planning, arresting two people with explosive devices and a cache of weapons and ammunition.
The pair was arrested in a Somali immigrant area of Nairobi on Thursday night, said Boniface Mwaniki , the head of Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit. He said the men are suspected of having links with al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group.
Police found four suicide vests, two improvised explosive devices, four AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition and 12 grenades, he said, adding that the vests are similar to those used in attacks in Uganda on crowds watching the soccer World Cup final on TV in July 2010, killing 76 people, Mwaniki said.
Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombings in Uganda, saying it was in retaliation for Uganda’s participation in the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Al-Shabab has vowed to carry out terror attacks in Kenya after the country for sent troops into Somalia to fight al-Shabab.
Kenya has suffered a spate of grenade attacks that have killed more than 50 people. Police have attributed them to sympathizers of al-Shabab in Kenya.
