kenyan105
11-04-2006, 06:29 AM
Kenyan authorities were Friday evening weighing the implication of America’s warning that Somalia’s suicide bombers could strike in the country anytime.
Internal Security minister John Michuki assembled top security and Intelligence chiefs at the Office of the President for closely guarded talks on the latest threat.
But in a surprising move, the Anti-Terrorism Police commander, Mr Nicholas Kamwande, claimed the Kenyan authorities only got to know about the alert from Washington through media reports.
The situation in the Horn of Africa was compounded on Thursday when peace talks between Somalia’s influential Islamists and the interim government broke down in Khartoum, Sudan, with both sides blaming the other for the failure to negotiate.
Officially, there was nothing forthcoming with Michuki’s Personal Assistant, Mr George Natembeya, asking The Saturday Standard to report that "the minister is aware.’’
He said buildings such as the Kenyatta International Conference Centre and other major installations had been secured.
American ambassador Michael Ranneberger confirmed the high alert and said Kenya and the US were co-operating to combat the threat of terrorism.
On the status of the US embassy security in Nairobi, he said his country’s mission was always on a state of high alert.
In Somalia, the powerful Islamic movement rejected as "baseless" allegations that its supreme leader had authorised suicide attacks in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia.
The Islamists, some of whom are suspected to have links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, said the "baseless warning" from Washington was part of pro-Zionist, Israeli propaganda aimed at destabilising the Muslim world.
"We know that America never favours Islamic movements anywhere in the world and such statements are part of an incorrect Zionist-inherited ideology," said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the Islamists’ deputy defense chief.
A source within the anti-terror police reported that though the warning had come via the traditional route of shared intelligence, possible targets such as social places, key installations and public transport systems remained under the "ongoing high alert’’.
He said that Nairobi and Mombasa, theatre of two deadly but separate Al-Qaeda terror strikes in 1998 and 2002, had "for sometime now been accorded special treatment in terms of security surveillance.’’
The warning by US State Department, which was given wide publicity by the Western press, including the widely read Washington Post, warned "extremist elements’’ could execute suicide explosions on prominent landmarks in Kenya and Ethiopia.
"It could be hours, it could be days, it could be weeks," a regional analyst on terrorism, Matt Bryden, was quoted telling Reuters.
The warning, simultaneously released on Thursday by American embassies in Kenya and Ethiopia to their nationals and international media companies, came against the backdrop of rising fears of a regional war was looming large in the Horn of Africa.
The threats "specifically mention the execution of suicide explosions in prominent landmarks within Kenya and Ethiopia," the embassies warned.
The messages called on Americans to be vigilant and to exercise extreme caution in public places.
Intelligence officials and non-governmental organisations in the region are warning of an escalation of the Somali conflict, with Ethiopia supporting the interim government and Eritrea backing the Islamists. Kenya, on the other hand, is home to many Somali expatriates.
Recent troop movements and artillery fire have added to the anxiety.
"Given the situation on the ground, the proximity of the forces and the artillery duels of the last few days, an escalation is likely," Bryden added.
The United States has accused the Islamists of harbouring Al Qaeda operatives.
"There are concerns that the ... current situation in Somalia might lend itself to wider violence in the region, and we are doing everything we can to see that does not happen," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"We believe the most hopeful course forward begins with transitional federal institutions and the Islamic courts coming together," he said.
Bomb attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 killed 224 persons, including 12 Americans.
Police spokesman Gideon Kibunja said security agents all over the country were doing all that was necessary to ensure public safety.
Kibunja said the anti-terror unit and other agencies were studying the warning.
"Although we have not officially received the threat, we are doing the needful to ensure safety," he said.
Credible sources within Kenya’s security ring believe Al-Qaeda’s spirit is alive in Somalia, because the elected Government is weak-kneed.
They also say the movement is keen on using Africa as its cover, by exploiting its poverty levels and propensity for such internal schisms as have been seen in Darfur, Chad, parts of Nigeria and now Somalia.
That is why, it’s revealed, the North Eastern Provincial Commissioner, Mr Kiritu Wamae, last month said youths from the province were being recruited by Somali militia to be combatants in the war between the Transitional National Government and the powerful union of Islamic courts.
"There is definitely a threat and that’s why we’re warning people to be careful,’ Jennifer Barnes, a spokesperson for the embassy in Nairobi, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Barnes said the warnings were seen on Internet sites but she did not specify which landmarks were named if any. The email warned Americans to use ‘extreme caution’ in public places.
The US backs Somalia’s weak transitional government, the 14th attempt at bringing central rule to the war-torn country, but it has proved largely ineffective and suffered from political infighting.
Islamist leaders have openly urged young Somalis to join a jihad, or holy war, against Ethiopia, which they say is protecting the interim government.
Prominent Government installations, landmark buildings, main airports, tourist hotels and American facilities were among areas that were put under intensified security as the alert went on air.
American State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was quoted in Washington as saying the US was particularly concerned about "terrorist elements" in Somalia who were linked to groups outside of the country.
"When you get specific information that raises concern, as a government we issue these kinds of warnings," McCormack was quoted as saying.
Islamists in war-torn Somalia who have overrun the country have been reported as angry against Ethiopia, which has forces to protect the elected government at Baidoa while they have been unhappy with Kenya, which is seen as sympathetic to the government.
Also at Michuki’s meeting was Office of the President Permanent Secretary Mr Cyrus Gituai and other departmental heads. Efforts to get a comment from the two were futile.
A spot check by The Saturday Standard confirmed tight security and normal use of metal detectors for body searches at KICC.
Mombasa police were on high alert over the threats and security was intensified at various vital areas.
The police chief Wilfred Mbithi said police in the area were on high alert over such threats, as they could not take chances.
He said already there were police officers patrolling vital installations, which could easily be a target of attack.
Among the installations police were patrolling on a 24 -hour basis are the American sponsored Light House Eye Clinic in the Old Town.
An American Christian NGO built the project. Other installations under constant police watch include beach hotels frequented by Americans.
Police sources said among other Coast places on high alert was Lamu where American marines are stationed for community projects.
A security officer at Mombasa Voyager Hotel told Saturday Standard they had already been briefed about the terror threat by police and were on high alert.
Other places on high alert were the Mombasa port where security has been tightened as every vehicle entering the facility must be thoroughly checked.
Security officers at the port confided in The Saturday Standard that they had been instructed to be cautious on any suspicious group.
Kamwande said he had learnt of the American warning, adding that his team was alert and aware of "various developments".
"We are aware that the US embassy has warned American citizens and our men are on the ground doing their work," he said before referring us to the police spokesman.
Police Commissioner Maj Gen Hussein Ali and other senior officers were in Kiganjo for an official engagement for the better part of the day as the news of the alert reverberated across the country.
Wilson Airport manager Yatich Kangugo said the airport had tightened its security checks following the American alert.
"There are increased body searches of all passengers and thorough police checks on all luggage, especially after the Islamic courts started taking over Somalia.
Most Somalia-bound passengers transit through Wilson airport.
Kenya has in the last eight years borne the brunt of two brutal terror attacks on Nairobi and Mombasa — both claiming hundreds of lives.
More than 270 people were killed in the two bomb attacks executed in 1998 and 2002 — but many more would have died had the terrorists’ wicked plans fully succeeded.
The deadliest attack took place on August 7, 1998, when Al Qaeda terrorists bombed the US embassy then located in downtown Nairobi.
Over 253 people were killed in the blast, which coincided with another attack at the US embassy in Dar es Salaam — both masterminded by Saudi-born fugitive Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The merchants of death struck at about 10.30am on the fateful day when a suicide bomber pulled up at the US embassy in a Toyota Dyna truck and detonated its deadly cargo between the embassy and the Ufundi Co-operative House after he had been denied access into the embassy’s basement parking.
The blast — occasioned by the bombing that the FBI said was executed in just under 30 minutes but had been planned for more than four years — shattered windows of buildings within a 10 km radius and engulfed the city skies with a combination of thick smoke and dust.
But the heroics of a duty guard who refused to open the security barrier at the US embassy making it impossible for the pick-up to make a direct hit of the embassy perhaps saved many lives.
Four years later, on November 28, 2002, calm at the Paradise Hotel, the idyllic coastal tourist resort situated at Kikambala, in the North Coast was ruthless shattered by a terrorists’ bomb.
A green all-terrain vehicle carrying two men of Middle East origin unleashed its deadly payload at the hotel’s reception area, throwing the triumphant arrival of a fresh batch of guests into a scene of carnage and death.
The attack, which was also blamed on Al Qaeda terror network, claimed 13 lives, most of them Kenyan dancers from the nearby Msumarini Village who had trooped to the hotel to welcome a group of 70 Israeli tourists.
Again the death toll would have been much higher had the terrorists executed their plan fully.
At almost the same time, two shoulder-fired missiles aimed at a fully-fuelled plane carrying 264 Israelis, and which was overflying the crowded mid-morning streets of Mombasa city, luckily missed their target.
Exactly two years after the Paradise assault, intelligence reports indicated the elite Kenyan anti-terrorist police foiled another terror plan in which the Al Qaeda plotted a double bombing on Nairobi which, had it succeeded, is feared would have been the deadliest on Kenyan soil.
http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143960606
Copyright © MMVI . The Standard Group
Internal Security minister John Michuki assembled top security and Intelligence chiefs at the Office of the President for closely guarded talks on the latest threat.
But in a surprising move, the Anti-Terrorism Police commander, Mr Nicholas Kamwande, claimed the Kenyan authorities only got to know about the alert from Washington through media reports.
The situation in the Horn of Africa was compounded on Thursday when peace talks between Somalia’s influential Islamists and the interim government broke down in Khartoum, Sudan, with both sides blaming the other for the failure to negotiate.
Officially, there was nothing forthcoming with Michuki’s Personal Assistant, Mr George Natembeya, asking The Saturday Standard to report that "the minister is aware.’’
He said buildings such as the Kenyatta International Conference Centre and other major installations had been secured.
American ambassador Michael Ranneberger confirmed the high alert and said Kenya and the US were co-operating to combat the threat of terrorism.
On the status of the US embassy security in Nairobi, he said his country’s mission was always on a state of high alert.
In Somalia, the powerful Islamic movement rejected as "baseless" allegations that its supreme leader had authorised suicide attacks in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia.
The Islamists, some of whom are suspected to have links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, said the "baseless warning" from Washington was part of pro-Zionist, Israeli propaganda aimed at destabilising the Muslim world.
"We know that America never favours Islamic movements anywhere in the world and such statements are part of an incorrect Zionist-inherited ideology," said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the Islamists’ deputy defense chief.
A source within the anti-terror police reported that though the warning had come via the traditional route of shared intelligence, possible targets such as social places, key installations and public transport systems remained under the "ongoing high alert’’.
He said that Nairobi and Mombasa, theatre of two deadly but separate Al-Qaeda terror strikes in 1998 and 2002, had "for sometime now been accorded special treatment in terms of security surveillance.’’
The warning by US State Department, which was given wide publicity by the Western press, including the widely read Washington Post, warned "extremist elements’’ could execute suicide explosions on prominent landmarks in Kenya and Ethiopia.
"It could be hours, it could be days, it could be weeks," a regional analyst on terrorism, Matt Bryden, was quoted telling Reuters.
The warning, simultaneously released on Thursday by American embassies in Kenya and Ethiopia to their nationals and international media companies, came against the backdrop of rising fears of a regional war was looming large in the Horn of Africa.
The threats "specifically mention the execution of suicide explosions in prominent landmarks within Kenya and Ethiopia," the embassies warned.
The messages called on Americans to be vigilant and to exercise extreme caution in public places.
Intelligence officials and non-governmental organisations in the region are warning of an escalation of the Somali conflict, with Ethiopia supporting the interim government and Eritrea backing the Islamists. Kenya, on the other hand, is home to many Somali expatriates.
Recent troop movements and artillery fire have added to the anxiety.
"Given the situation on the ground, the proximity of the forces and the artillery duels of the last few days, an escalation is likely," Bryden added.
The United States has accused the Islamists of harbouring Al Qaeda operatives.
"There are concerns that the ... current situation in Somalia might lend itself to wider violence in the region, and we are doing everything we can to see that does not happen," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"We believe the most hopeful course forward begins with transitional federal institutions and the Islamic courts coming together," he said.
Bomb attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 killed 224 persons, including 12 Americans.
Police spokesman Gideon Kibunja said security agents all over the country were doing all that was necessary to ensure public safety.
Kibunja said the anti-terror unit and other agencies were studying the warning.
"Although we have not officially received the threat, we are doing the needful to ensure safety," he said.
Credible sources within Kenya’s security ring believe Al-Qaeda’s spirit is alive in Somalia, because the elected Government is weak-kneed.
They also say the movement is keen on using Africa as its cover, by exploiting its poverty levels and propensity for such internal schisms as have been seen in Darfur, Chad, parts of Nigeria and now Somalia.
That is why, it’s revealed, the North Eastern Provincial Commissioner, Mr Kiritu Wamae, last month said youths from the province were being recruited by Somali militia to be combatants in the war between the Transitional National Government and the powerful union of Islamic courts.
"There is definitely a threat and that’s why we’re warning people to be careful,’ Jennifer Barnes, a spokesperson for the embassy in Nairobi, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Barnes said the warnings were seen on Internet sites but she did not specify which landmarks were named if any. The email warned Americans to use ‘extreme caution’ in public places.
The US backs Somalia’s weak transitional government, the 14th attempt at bringing central rule to the war-torn country, but it has proved largely ineffective and suffered from political infighting.
Islamist leaders have openly urged young Somalis to join a jihad, or holy war, against Ethiopia, which they say is protecting the interim government.
Prominent Government installations, landmark buildings, main airports, tourist hotels and American facilities were among areas that were put under intensified security as the alert went on air.
American State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was quoted in Washington as saying the US was particularly concerned about "terrorist elements" in Somalia who were linked to groups outside of the country.
"When you get specific information that raises concern, as a government we issue these kinds of warnings," McCormack was quoted as saying.
Islamists in war-torn Somalia who have overrun the country have been reported as angry against Ethiopia, which has forces to protect the elected government at Baidoa while they have been unhappy with Kenya, which is seen as sympathetic to the government.
Also at Michuki’s meeting was Office of the President Permanent Secretary Mr Cyrus Gituai and other departmental heads. Efforts to get a comment from the two were futile.
A spot check by The Saturday Standard confirmed tight security and normal use of metal detectors for body searches at KICC.
Mombasa police were on high alert over the threats and security was intensified at various vital areas.
The police chief Wilfred Mbithi said police in the area were on high alert over such threats, as they could not take chances.
He said already there were police officers patrolling vital installations, which could easily be a target of attack.
Among the installations police were patrolling on a 24 -hour basis are the American sponsored Light House Eye Clinic in the Old Town.
An American Christian NGO built the project. Other installations under constant police watch include beach hotels frequented by Americans.
Police sources said among other Coast places on high alert was Lamu where American marines are stationed for community projects.
A security officer at Mombasa Voyager Hotel told Saturday Standard they had already been briefed about the terror threat by police and were on high alert.
Other places on high alert were the Mombasa port where security has been tightened as every vehicle entering the facility must be thoroughly checked.
Security officers at the port confided in The Saturday Standard that they had been instructed to be cautious on any suspicious group.
Kamwande said he had learnt of the American warning, adding that his team was alert and aware of "various developments".
"We are aware that the US embassy has warned American citizens and our men are on the ground doing their work," he said before referring us to the police spokesman.
Police Commissioner Maj Gen Hussein Ali and other senior officers were in Kiganjo for an official engagement for the better part of the day as the news of the alert reverberated across the country.
Wilson Airport manager Yatich Kangugo said the airport had tightened its security checks following the American alert.
"There are increased body searches of all passengers and thorough police checks on all luggage, especially after the Islamic courts started taking over Somalia.
Most Somalia-bound passengers transit through Wilson airport.
Kenya has in the last eight years borne the brunt of two brutal terror attacks on Nairobi and Mombasa — both claiming hundreds of lives.
More than 270 people were killed in the two bomb attacks executed in 1998 and 2002 — but many more would have died had the terrorists’ wicked plans fully succeeded.
The deadliest attack took place on August 7, 1998, when Al Qaeda terrorists bombed the US embassy then located in downtown Nairobi.
Over 253 people were killed in the blast, which coincided with another attack at the US embassy in Dar es Salaam — both masterminded by Saudi-born fugitive Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The merchants of death struck at about 10.30am on the fateful day when a suicide bomber pulled up at the US embassy in a Toyota Dyna truck and detonated its deadly cargo between the embassy and the Ufundi Co-operative House after he had been denied access into the embassy’s basement parking.
The blast — occasioned by the bombing that the FBI said was executed in just under 30 minutes but had been planned for more than four years — shattered windows of buildings within a 10 km radius and engulfed the city skies with a combination of thick smoke and dust.
But the heroics of a duty guard who refused to open the security barrier at the US embassy making it impossible for the pick-up to make a direct hit of the embassy perhaps saved many lives.
Four years later, on November 28, 2002, calm at the Paradise Hotel, the idyllic coastal tourist resort situated at Kikambala, in the North Coast was ruthless shattered by a terrorists’ bomb.
A green all-terrain vehicle carrying two men of Middle East origin unleashed its deadly payload at the hotel’s reception area, throwing the triumphant arrival of a fresh batch of guests into a scene of carnage and death.
The attack, which was also blamed on Al Qaeda terror network, claimed 13 lives, most of them Kenyan dancers from the nearby Msumarini Village who had trooped to the hotel to welcome a group of 70 Israeli tourists.
Again the death toll would have been much higher had the terrorists executed their plan fully.
At almost the same time, two shoulder-fired missiles aimed at a fully-fuelled plane carrying 264 Israelis, and which was overflying the crowded mid-morning streets of Mombasa city, luckily missed their target.
Exactly two years after the Paradise assault, intelligence reports indicated the elite Kenyan anti-terrorist police foiled another terror plan in which the Al Qaeda plotted a double bombing on Nairobi which, had it succeeded, is feared would have been the deadliest on Kenyan soil.
http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143960606
Copyright © MMVI . The Standard Group