- Immediately intelligence is collected, it is given to the right agencies for action.
- The intervention of these agencies was timely; we would not have been able to fight al Shabaab alone. It was a real threat.
The involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency and MI6 has really helped Kenya to contain attacks by al Shabaab. I was part of the team that compiled a report on the impact of the agencies on terrorist attacks in Kenya.
We were slow in getting security intelligence; the terrorists knew that and they exploited it.
The coming of these two agencies, CIA and MI6, has boosted our way of collecting intelligence. This has gone a long way in repulsing and thwarting some attacks.
During the Westgate attack, we complained about getting intelligence that was not actionable.
When we suffered the Garissa University College attack, everybody complained about how the security agencies collected and utilised intelligence. This has been the case with many other attacks.
But the moment we started getting help from the CIA, MI6 and other international agencies such as Mossad (Israeli Intelligence Community), things have changed. Collection of intelligence is now more targeted.
Immediately intelligence is collected, it is given to the right agencies for action. So now you find cases where intelligence has been used and many planned attacks thwarted, the suspects, planners and others arrested and charged, while others have been eliminated.
The intervention of these agencies was timely; we would not have been able to fight al Shabaab alone. It was a real threat.
The partnership between Kenyan security agencies and the intentional security and intelligence agencies has been around for a long time. The CIA started training Kenyan security apparatus from Independence. The UK's MI6 has also been training us for quite some time now.
What happens is that more effort has been put in and more resources have been deployed in the training as opposed to previous years when training was a little bit controlled.
With the emergence of al Shabaab, we started receiving more resources not only in terms of training but also equipment.
The security expert spoke to the Star