Kenya plans long-term strategy to flush out Al-Shabaab in coast

Kenya's security agencies on Tuesday announced elaborate strategy to liberate the vast Boni forest in the coastal town of Lamu used as hideout for Al-Shabaab terror group.

Police spokesman Charles Owino said the security officers from the police and military have started constructing roads, airstrip and police stations as long term strategy to defeat the insurgents who have set up bases in a remote forest near the Indian Ocean coastline bordering Somalia.

Owino told Xinhua that apart from flushing out the militants, they have set up elaborate measures to make the area accessible for both military and police.

Owino said military and the National Youth Service (NYS) personnel have been deployed to the forest to repair roads ,construct more police station as long term plan to push for the withdraw of the militants.

The militants have in the past planted improvised explosive devices along the roads to target military and security vehicles before launching attacks.

Sources said more than 500 military and police officers and forest rangers have launched security operation in Mangai and Baure in northern Lamu.

Lamu's Ijara divisional police commander Christopher Rotich confirmed that the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), General Service Unit (GSU) and regular police have already arrived in the area.

He asked the residents, whose economy depended on the forests, to leave, and those who possessed illegal arms to surrender them before they are forcefully taken away.

The main plan is to remove the Jeshi Ayman, which has made the dense Boni forest its home. The group is the Kenyan faction of Somalia's terrorist group Al-Shabaab and has been unleashing terror in parts of Lamu mainland that border the forest.

Police reports say about 300 militants, including foreign fighters and recruits from Mombasa, Kilifi and other parts of Kenya, belong to Jeshi Ayman. Enditem