Kenyan police nab suspect behind terror attacks

Kenyan police were on Thursday interrogating a suspect believed to be behind a spate of terror attacks in northern Kenya.

Mandera Police Commander Job Boronjo told journalists that the suspect, Salim Abubakar Kitonga, who was arrested early on Thursday, is providing crucial information that may lead to the arrest of those behind terror attacks in the county.

The East African nation experienced a rise in attacks in different parts of the country in 2014, particularly along the coast, where attacks by Somali Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabaab killed over 90 in June, and in the northeast, where two back-to- back incidents in Mandera in November and December resulted in 64 dead.

Boronjo said there is evidence that Kitonga planned the two attacks in Mandera. "The suspect has been on our list for long as reports indicate he is behind the recruitment of Kenyans, Ugandans and Tanzanians into Al-Shabaab group based in Somalia."

He said the 30-year-old suspect, who had been living in a mosque within Mandera town that he refused to disclose, has been facilitating the movement of Al-Shabaab recruits into Somalia.

The Mandera county and other parts of northern Kenya have been subjected to successive explosive attacks by Al-Shabaab operatives in the country following the onslaught by Kenyan soldiers on the Al-Shabaab in Somalia in 2011. Endi