KENYAN counter-terrorism officers have disrupted a major Al-Shabaab plot targeting the capital, Nairobi, recovering a weapons cache that included pistols, grenades, explosives and 600 rounds of ammunition following months of covert surveillance inside the Dadaab refugee complex in northeastern Kenya, authorities announced Wednesday.
Counter Terrorism Policing Kenya (CTP-Kenya) said the operation – the result of sustained intelligence gathering on a terror network embedded within the sprawling Dadaab camps – intercepted arms and drugs that had been destined for use against targets in Nairobi. The suspects had allegedly timed the attack to coincide with the holy month of Ramadan, and were also exploring the kidnapping of foreign nationals and the hijacking of vehicles as part of a broader campaign of violence.
“Nairobi remains safe because of the brave young men and women in our security agencies who spend long hours tracking down dangerous terrorists and criminals,” CTP-Kenya said in a statement posted to social media.
The operation is the latest in a long-running campaign by Kenyan security forces against Al-Shabaab, which has repeatedly targeted the East African nation in retaliation for Kenya’s military presence in Somalia. Kenya sent troops into Somalia in 2011 with the goal of taking down Al-Shabaab operatives who had kidnapped foreign tourists and aid workers inside Kenya, and the group vowed to carry out a massive attack on Nairobi in response.
That threat was horrifyingly realised on September 21, 2013, when a four-man team raided the upscale Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital, throwing grenades and firing indiscriminately on shoppers and business owners, launching a four-day siege that became one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Kenya’s history. At least 67 people were killed, the youngest an eight-year-old child. More than 175 others were wounded.
Justice proved slow and incomplete. Kenyan authorities arrested four men in 2013 for allegedly playing roles in the attack. One was released in 2019 due to a lack of evidence. It was not until October 2020 – more than seven years after the massacre – that a Kenyan court found two men, Hussein Hassan Mustafa and Mohammed Ahmed Abdi, guilty of conspiring with and aiding the Al-Shabaab attackers. A third man was acquitted on all charges. Telephone records of the defendants’ communications with the perpetrators before the attack formed the primary basis for conviction. Human Rights Watch noted at the time that neither the actual gunmen nor the masterminds of the attack had been brought to full justice.
The mastermind of the Westgate attack, Al-Shabaab external operations chief Adan Garar, was killed in a US drone strike in southern Somalia in March 2015.
Al-Shabaab’s campaign against Kenya has not relented since Westgate. In 2015, the group killed 147 people at a university in northeast Kenya, and in 201,9 killed 21 people at a luxury hotel and office complex in Nairobi.
Wednesday’s foiled attack points to the persistence of the threat and the central role Dadaab continues to play in it. The sprawling refugee settlement has historically been one of Kenya’s most terrorism-affected locations, ranking among the cities with the highest concentration of attacks in the country. Security agencies have long alleged that militant networks exploit the camp’s size and population density to move fighters and weapons toward the capital.
The NCTC-Kenya was among the agencies involved in Wednesday’s operation. No arrests have been publicly confirmed. Further details are expected as investigations continue.
