MOYALE, KENYA: A terror alert has been issued in Moyale town.
The move follows an arrest of three Kenyans with alleged links to Al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, Al-Shabaab on Thursday.
A joint Kenya and Ethiopian security forces on Thursday made a major breakthrough in Moyale, Kenya after they arrested three people with more than 100,000 simcards from three different countries and secured sophisticated telecommunication gadgets, all traced to the Al-Shabaab terror cell.
The seized gadgets, worth millions of shillings are desktop computers, laptops, modems, cell phones, radio calls, digital cameras and satellite receivers.
Others were hyper media machines, uninterrupted power supply (UPS) machines, studio switch boards, wide-area band network equipment, high voltage dry cell batteries, scanners, antennas and used GSM sim cards and scratch cards.
“The recovered gadgets are very expensive and we are still tracing the owners. We are baffled to find out more than 100,000 sim cards and credit cards,” Moyale OCPD Thomas Atuti told the Standard in his office on Thursday.
In recent weeks, revealed Mr Atuti, both towns had poor phone reception adding that the seized gadgets had destabilised communication network along the Kenya-Ethiopia border.
Moyale Deputy County Commissioner John Cheruiyot said experts from Nairobi arrived yesterday to study the recovered gadgets and find out its contents.
Marsabit County Commissioner Peter Thuku said preliminary investigation showed that the trio had come back from Somalia adding that they were in the border town to target both Kenya and Ethiopia who are part f the Africa Union forces restoring order in the war torn country.
The trio said Mr Thuku had rented 12 singles rooms in different parts of the town for some months, all located near the border where they had planned to carry out terror attacks.
The estate is next to the Kenya Postal Corporation and Custom buildings.
Mr Thuku said Moyale has been placed on alert adding that both Kenya and Ethiopian security personnel are tracking down on suspects who escaped.
”We are on high alert and have put measures in place to ensure that there is no terror-related attacks in the area,” said the administrator.
According to initial probe, the trio had come to the town and opened small business like kiosk but were spending big and do not interact with locals, a scenario that finally led to the raid.
”The initial investigation shows that these people had come from a training field in Somalia and were here (Moyale) to carry out terror attack on Kenya,” said Thuku.
Source-standardmedia.co.ke
Fresh Terror Alert Issued in Moyale
