Kenyan Police Foil Bomb Plot

By ADF On Oct 8, 2014

A police officer patrols a street in Mombasa, Kenya, in April 2014. REUTERS

Kenyan police arrested two men in March 2014 who were illegally driving a vehicle in Mombasa that was later discovered to be packed with explosives. “We have not established where the target was, but we have detained two terror suspects who were in the vehicle,” said Henry Ondiek of the Mombasa Criminal Investigation Department, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Police said two homemade bombs were found in the vehicle, along with a mobile phone that could have been used as a detonator. “We were tipped off that the two were headed for an attack on an unspecified place, and we laid an ambush and got them,” Ondiek said.

Ondiek said that the car police seized had Somali plates and was in the country illegally. He said one of the suspects is a Somali national and the other a Somali-Kenyan. The vehicle was taken to Mombasa’s main police station and placed under tight security, while police inspected a local garage where the vehicle may have been assembled, Ondiek said.

“At [first] glance, it is very difficult to know that it is laden with explosives,” Ondiek said. “But bomb experts discovered that the explosives were hidden in the vehicle’s engine.” Mombasa County Commissioner Nelson Marwa told AFP that foreign special forces were part of the operation to stop the two men who had been preparing a “massive attack.”

“The two were tracked from Somalia by both Kenyan and foreign forces,” he said. Meanwhile, Uganda warned that al-Shabaab militants were planning to use fuel tankers as bombs. Uganda and Kenya are key troop contributors to the African Union Mission in Somalia, and al-Shabaab has carried out retaliatory attacks in both countries in the past.

“We have received credible information to the effect that al-Shabaab are planning to blow up fuel trucks in Kampala to cause extensive damage to people and property,” Ugandan Police Chief Kale Kayihura said in a statement. “The public is asked to be very vigilant and help the police and report any suspicious movement or activity.”