Kenyan Police Say They Have Disrupted an Alleged Plot by ISIS-Linked Medics

Tom Odula / AP
Updated
"The suspects were planning large scale attacks akin to the Westgate Mall attack," Kenya's police chief said

(NAIROBI) — Kenyan police have disrupted a cell of extremist medics linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) suspected of plotting a biological attack on Kenya and recruiting university students to join the group in Libya and Syria, Kenya’s police chief said Tuesday.

A court allowed anti-terrorism police officers to keep Mohammed Abdi Ali, a medical intern at the Wote District Hospital in Makueni County who was arrested Friday, for 30 days to complete investigations, Joseph Boinnet said in a statement.

Ali’s wife, a medical student in Uganda, has also been arrested in Kampala, Boinnet said. Two of Ali’s alleged accomplices Ahmed Hish and Farah Dagane, medical interns in the western town of Kitale, have gone into hiding, he said.

“The suspects were planning large scale attacks akin to the Westgate Mall attack (in September 2013 in which 67 people died) with the intention of killing innocent Kenyans,” said Boinnet. He said Ali’s “network also included medical experts with whom they planned to unleash a biological attack in Kenya using anthrax. His arrest and those of his accomplices is a major breakthrough in the fight against terrorism in Kenya and the region.”

Kenya is struggling to battle ISIS’s recruitment of some of the country’s youths. At least 20 Kenyan young people have travelled to Libya to join the extremist group, according to police. Authorities fear that Islamic State is trying to establish a presence in Kenya, East Africa’s biggest economy and telecommunications and transport hub. Al-Qaeda has long had a presence in Kenya through its affiliation with Somalia’s extremist insurgents al-Shabab. There is concern that those who join ISIS and al-Qaeda will be used to launch attacks on western targets in Kenya and neighboring countries.

Al-Shabab East Africa has used the hundreds of Kenyan youths in its ranks to launch attacks like the April 2015 attack on Garissa University College which killed more than 148 people, mostly students.

However some rights activists have since Friday suggested that police could be involved in the medics’ disappearance. Al-Amin Kimathi, a human rights activist, said the police statement alleging the medic’s involvement in a terror plot was an excuse made after activists accused police of involvement in their disappearance.

“We asked questions very early yesterday (Monday) where these boys were and we raised fears that the same modus operandi used before on suspected extremists of assassinations, forced disappearances and extra-judicial execution is being used again,” Kimathi said.