Kenya says it has frozen the assets of nine people identified as financiers of the terrorist group al-Shabaab, the country’s internal security minister has said.
Fred Matiang’i said the nine Kenyans whose assets have been frozen will no longer be able to finance the group’s activities in the country. He said the move was among Kenyan government efforts to combat domestic terrorism.
A statement from the minister said the financiers were helping the group “to advance their agenda of extremism and terrorism” by recruiting and planting operatives among civilians.
Al-Shabaab has been responsible for scores of attacks in Kenya which have claimed the lives of thousands of people.
Choking networks
President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya recently told global leaders that the rate of terrorist attacks in the country has increased because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Matiang’i maintained that choking the facilitation networks of the alleged financiers of the terrorist group is the way to go.
“The only way to deny terrorists the means to threaten our way of life is to choke their facilitation networks, and this is why I have published the foregoing list so that they can no longer finance Al-Shabaab’s operations within our borders,” he said.
The nine alleged financiers have been identified as Halima Adan Ali, Waleed Ahmed Zein, Sheikh Guyo Gorsa Boru, Mohammed Abdi Ali (Abu Fidaa), Nuseiba Mohammed Haji, Abdimajit Adan Hassan, Mohammed Ali Abdi, Muktar Ibrahim Ali and Mire Abdullahi Elmi.
Shabaab threats
Since 2011 Al-Shabaab has carried out several attacks on various Kenyan cities to oust the government.
The terrorist group has also kicked hard against Kenya’s contribution of troops to the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia.
They have therefore threatened to carry out terror attacks in the Horn of Africa until soldiers are pulled out of Somalia.
In 2015, the group carried out an attack that claimed the lives of over 140 university students – the worst ever single terrorist attack on Kenya.
E A Alanore
* Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online.
#asaaseradio
#TVOL
