1st LD: Kenya freezes accounts of financial institutions over terrorism links

The Kenyan government on Wednesday published a list of 86 organizations and individuals as well froze accounts of 13 financial institutions suspected of financing terrorism in the country.

In a gazette notice, the government also ordered all licensed banks and microfinance institutions to deny the organizations and individuals financial services and to file transaction reports with the central bank within 48 hours.

Treasury Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge told journalists in Nairobi that the government also suspended informal money transfer systems popular with the Somali community.

Kamau asked the traders to instead use commercial banks as the crackdown down on possible revenue sources and systems that facilitate terror activities in the country.

"The government relied on an international list of persons and institutions which support terrorism activities and those blacklisted are being interrogated by the investigative institutions," Thugge told journalists.

He said the government has suspended the licenses of 13 forex exchange bureaux and money transfer service firms (hawalas) it accuses of financing terrorism.

Citing the proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering act of 2009, Kamau said the information obtained on the 13 institutions renders their business untenable as they accused of aiding economic crimes.

The list came in the wake of the massacre at the Gairssa University College last week where 148 people were killed and over 70 others injured by Al-Shabaab militants.

In the gazette notice dated April 7, government listed a group of terrorist organizations which include Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) among others.

Defense Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo said the government had put in place measures to eliminate terrorism on Kenyan soil.

Omamo said the families of the victims would be given 1,100 U.S. dollars and that the government would cater funeral expenses.

Kenyan leaders from the clash-hit northern region had vowed to compile a list of suspected terrorists behind a spate of attacks across the East African nation in a month's time.

The political leaders from three counties of Mandera, Garissa and Wajir - which have suffered terror attacks in the recent past promised to release the names of radicalized youths suspected to be members of the Al-Shabaab militant group, their financiers and those supporting terrorism activities in the country.

"We must tell the truth, that the radicalization and training of these terrorists is not done in the bush, it is done in some mosques with the help of some rogue imams. We must ask where the political leaders are when this is happening," Government's Majority Leader Adan Dusale said.

The political leaders who included lawmakers and governors said that some mosques have been used as places of radicalization.

They said they will also legislate the setting up of security centers at the headquarters of the three counties through which informers will be able to identify, document, and expose financiers and sympathizers of militants in the next one month.

The leaders in the joint address termed the attack as having been carried out by "demented demons" and distanced the religion of Islam from the incident.

The leaders also said they will soon come up with a strategy to win youths from radicalization and said they would be using a coordinated anti-Al-Shabaab campaign through the media. Endi