April 2 marked eight years since 147 students were killed by al Shabaab militants in a night of bloodletting at Garissa University.
Among the killers was a fellow Kenyan, roughly the same age as the victims.
Al Shaabab and other terror groups employ suicide bombers.
The numbers show that Kenyan recruits are preferred within the circle of fighters.
Recruiters promise divine reward and monetary gain for those willing to undertake martyrdom operations.
Suicide bombers are brainwashed to believe that they are sacrificing their lives for the religion.
Over the years, hundreds of Kenyans have been radicalised and recruited to join al Shaabab, leaving families desperate for information on the whereabouts of their loved ones.
Police investigations have revealed the face of a Kenyan suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the Mogadishu mayor’s office on January 22 in an al Shabaab attack that killed at least five people and injuring four.
Mohamed Abdul Majid from Majengo, Nyeri, led a team of about six al Shabaab attackers by blasting himself into pieces to pave way for his fellow attackers to shoot at civilians indiscriminately.
Sources privy to the operations of the Somalia-based terrorist group revealed that Majid was not ready for the mission on that particular day and had planned to bolt out, only for his handler to press the detonating remote upon realising his hesitation outside the mayor’s office.
While claiming responsibility for the attack, al Shaabab identified him as Zubeir Muhajir from Nyeri.
Majid joined al Shaabab in 2017 in Somalia where he was in the frontlines fighting for the militia group.
According to police investigations, he had been communicating with his family, expressing the desire to come home until late last year when he was reported to have cut communication with them.
Majid was not the only Kenyan recruit.
Through their media outlet, al Shabaab recently released a video clip eulogising Kenyan fighters in Somalia who perished while fighting for the terror group.
One of them is Ramadhan Mbwana Mbega, aka Abdul Haq Muhajir aka Junia, from Kwale.
Al Shabaab acknowledged Mbega as the man involved in the execution of the Manda Bay and Baure attacks and later used as a suicide bomb in an attack against the Somalia National Army in Barire on April 3, 2021.
Investigations show Mbega joined the group in 2014 when he was only 18 years, after he was lured with the promise of a lavish life in Somalia, a fantasy life that the teenager never tasted even a pinch of.
A week after his demise, Majid's relative received a phone call from a woman in Somalia who identified herself as his wife.
The caller informed her of Majid’s demise without giving much details on the nature of the assignment, news that shattered his mother’s heart.
He was her favourite son.
She had made a missing person's report at Nyeri police station and searched for him frantically within Nyeri and beyond but her efforts bore no fruits.
It never occurred to her that her son would be vulnerable enough to fall victim to the wave of radicalisation witnessed in Nyeri then.
An uncle who radicalised and allowed a nephew to explode Majid dropped out of DEB Solio Secondary School in Nyeri in Form 1 before running away from home and joining al Shaabab in Somalia.
Investigations have revealed he was radicalised, recruited and facilitated alongside his friend Mohamed Badawi a.k.a Badi by his uncle Abdi Ibrahim alias Somo, who is a trusted member of al Shaabab’s suicide squad in Somalia.
Both Majid and Badawi were said to have shown behavioural changes before disappearing, they became staunch Muslims abruptly wearing kanzus and expensive gadgets despite being from humble families.
Majid’s family lost two sons to the al Shaabab recruitment drive in a span of two years - himself and his uncle Somo.
Somo disappeared in 2016 leaving behind his wife and two daughters.
His sister, Majid’s mother, is now carrying the burden of bringing up the two girls since Somo’s wife remarried.
Somo was suspected to be among the youth recruited into al Shabaab from Nyeri by a radicalisation and recruitment syndicate that targeted vulnerable jobless youth, promising them employment and good life upon joining the militants, only for them to experience a different reality upon arrival in Somalia.
Police investigations have also established that Mbega, Somo, Badawi and Majid are among Kenyans who received specialised training in suicide bombing in Somalia.
The squad headed by a Malindi-born Kenyan, Issa Abdalla Ahmed alias Issa Kauni, draws its members from desperate Kenyan recruits in Somalia.
One of the recruits, a member of the squad who tried to escape, called his relatives in Kenya informing them of tribal segregation and mistreatment facing Kenyan fighters, especially suicide brigades in the hands of al Shaabab.
“These people want only Kenyans to be suicide bombers while Somalis carry out light duties with less risk,” said the recruit in a telephone conversation.
Despite having senior officials within the ranks of al Shaabab, Kenyan “brothers” are reported to be treated as second class jihadists and mainly viewed as threats and spies among the fighters.
Kenyans who are suspected to be spies, or those constantly talking about Kenya, are tricked and forced into daring missions with zero chance of survival.
“They are sent to die, or if an iota of evidence is found they are executed in public,” the recruit said.
Previous major attacks conducted by al Shaabab in Kenya and Somalia saw Kenyans just like Majid blow themselves up to cause chaos during the terror attacks.
Here are some of the notable Kenyan-born suicide bombers who were tricked into sacrificing themselves for the jihadist cause.
Mahir Khalid Riziki, a Kenyan suicide bomber from Mombasa, was involved in the Dusit D2 attack on January 15, 2019.
Mahir blew up outside the Secret Garden restaurant within the DusiT D2 complex before other armed attackers arrived.
Mahir fled to Somalia in 2015 after police flagged his photograph on a billboard for terror related activities.
Abdikadir Abubakar Abdikadir aka Thabith, a Kenyan from Malindi and a close associate of Issa Abdalla Ahmed aka Issa Kauni, head of al-Shabaab suicide squad in Somalia, was used in the Hawadaley Military Base attack in Somalia as a suicide bomber in January 2023.
Thabith joined the terror group in 2014. Jamal Diba Dida aka Zubeyr, a Kenyan from Isiolo, was a suicide bomber during an attack on the African Union military base in the village of El-Baraf in Somalia’s middle Shabelle region.
Jamal blew up outside the base initiating an attack on May 3, 2022 targeting Burundian soldiers.
Adow Mohamud Abdullahi, a Kenyan from Mandera, was deployed from Gedo region to attack an AP or Kenya Police camp within Mandera in December 2015 before police thwarted the plan.
Adow told the police that the militants forced him to join their suicide squad and threatened him that they could remotely control his suicide vest such that if he failed to push the detonation button they would do so from a distance.
Douglas Wasike aka Abu Mujaheed, a Kenyan from Bungoma, was a suicide bomber deployed by al Shaabab in 2022 to attack a mall and a church in Nairobi during the Christmas season.
Wasike was arrested and helped security agencies to thwart planned attacks in Nairobi and Mombasa.
In his confession, he narrated to police how Kenyans were forced into al Shaabab suicide squad.
Kennedy Yogan Wafula alias Anwar Yogan Mwok, a Nairobi-based rising star in soccer, was used as a suicide bomber in the January 2018 attack at a Kenya Defence Forces camp in Kolbiyow, Somlalia.
He had converted to Islam in 2015 and was later radicalised by Sheikh Ahmed Iman, a Somalia-based al Shaabab head of propaganda.
He joined al Shaabab alongside his childhood friend Omar Patroba Juma who was deployed to attack a Rapid Deployment Unit camp at Mangai in Lamu, on July 14, 2016 where he was killed in the foiled mission.