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Kenyan police nab another terror suspect near border

Xinhua, February 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

Kenyan police on Tuesday arrested another key terror suspect in the northern border town of Mandera, an official said Wednesday.

The suspect, Mohamed Ibrahim Bashir, a 40-year-old Mandera resident, is believed to be behind last year's massacre of 64 people on a Nairobi-bound commuter bus and at a quarry in Mandera, according to the police.

The suspect is being interrogated, said Mandera County Police Commander Job Boronjo, noting that the police have reasons to believe that he was an associate of Salim Abubakar Kitonga, the main suspect in the quarry and bus attacks.

"Bashir has been mentioned by his accomplices and we hope to make more arrests," said the police officer.

Kitonga was arrested in Mandera last week and brought to court on Monday with his six accomplices but police made an application for time for further investigation.

State Prosecutor Isaiah Mwiranga told the court that Kitonga was believed to have been sneaking explosives into Kenya from neighbouring Somalia.

"The respondent is believed to be an Al-Shabaab agent based in Mandera town and responsible for recruiting and organizing movement of the group members in and outside Kenya to execute attack," said the prosecutor.

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