- Boni Forest continues to be a notorious hiding place for terrorists despite an ongoing security operation.
- The militants are targeting villages close and around the Boni forest for radicalisation of residents.
Detectives in Lamu have warned of new al Shabaab recruiting agents, training grounds and hideouts in unsuspecting villages and other areas around the county.
County commissioner Irungu Macharia said intelligence reports show that a good number of residents in Ingini, Dodori, Kwasasi and many other villages bordering Boni Forest have been radicalised or are in the process of receiving extremist indoctrination from al Shabaab militants.
Boni Forest remains the perfect hiding grounds for al Shabaab with reports of an established militia camp deep inside the forest.
On Sunday, police shot dead a 30-year-old man who attempted to attack officers with a panga in Kwasasi area in Lamu East.
He was believed provided refuge for two men who had attacked and seriously wounded a police officer last week.
Police said the suspect refused to surrender even after several warning shots were fired in the air, forcing the officers to shoot him dead.
County commissioner Macharia said the government believes the deceased had been radicalised as he portrayed himself as a suicide killer, a tactic used by al Shabaab militants.
He said security agencies were keeping close tabs on all areas bordering Boni Forest over suspicion that al Shabaab recruiting cells have been secretly conducting radicalisation and using residents to conduct attacks on security agencies.
Panga-wielding gangs seem to be growing more confident at attacking police officers and administrators especially in Lamu East, which is notorious for drugs and crime.
The worst areas are Mbwajumwali, Tchundwa, Myabogi and Kizingitini.
On June 8, police constable Rodgers Odhiambo attached to Tchundwa police post was accosted and slashed to death by unknown assailants as he came from a shop in Tchundwa town.
In October last year, police constable Hesbon Okemwa Anunda, attached to the Tchundwa police post, was killed and his mutilated body dumped in a thicket on the Mbwajumwali-Kizingitini road.
His G3 rifle and 60 rounds of ammunition were never found.
On December 11 last year, Mbwajumwali location senior chief Mohamed Haji Famau and his assistant Malik Athman Shee of Myabogi sub-location were attacked and slashed to death in their office in broad daylight by two men disguised as women wearing 'buibui' and whose faces were veiled.
On June 10, 2016, Mbwajumwali senior chief Mohamed Shee Mohamed,50, was hacked to death by unknown assailants while on his way to work.
Police believe all the attacks were conducted by radicalised individuals acting on direct orders from their al Shabaab recruiters.
“It has come to our attention that some individuals have established homesteads at Kwasasi, Ingini, Dodori and Boni forest pretending that they are farming but in reality they’re not," Macharia said.
“We have information that the brutal murders and attacks of our officers are by radicalised people in this region acting for al Shabaab. They have turned the villages into their recruitment and training grounds but we have eyes on them.”
The county police boss warned that parents and relatives of local radicals are likely to lure idle primary, secondary school and college students into joining the militia now that learning institutions are closed due to Covid-19.
He asked families whose relatives have joined al Shabaab to be on high alert as more relatives are bound to be recruited at this time.
Intelligence reports indicate that the terror group is adopting new recruitment techniques, among them using Kenyan terrorists to lure, radicalise and recruit close relatives and friends into the Al-Qaeda linked militia group.
The Kenyan terrorists are also being used to lure friends and peers through promises of a good life, money and comfort for their families back home once they join.
The county commissioner asked families to be on the lookout and report any such efforts by suspicious relatives.
A security operation nicknamed Linda Boni which was launched in September 2015 to flush out al Shabaab militants from inside Boni Forest is still underway.
Edited by Henry Makori