Changing face of terror, your role in making Kenya safe

Security agencies want the public to be more pro-active and step up their levels of involvement and alertness in the wake of increased terror threats.

Specifically, entrepreneurs running hotels and lodging facilities should obtain full details of their occupants and report any suspicious characters to the police for inspection and identity authentication.

Proprietors of businesses, shopping malls, places of worship, educational institutions and other areas frequented by the public should ensure they have functional CCTV cameras under constant monitoring to detect danger.

Such public places should employ competent security guards who are well-trained on screening procedures and identifying threats, police say. Passenger Service Vehicle (PSV) operators and cab drivers need to monitor and have a better understanding of their passengers and the luggage they transport.

They should be alert not to allow anyone to leave luggage behind, says police spokesman Charles Owino. Any suspicious individuals or parcels should be reported to the police.

Further, cargo and parcel handling and transportation companies should have thorough screening mechanisms and procedures that help them understand contents of the cargo they handle.

Such enterprises should ensure every parcel has an identifiable owner through accountable record-keeping of senders and recipients.

“Follow up investigations after the DusitD2 attack led to the arrests of individuals whose national identity cards and phones were used by the terror suspects. People need to be careful,” Owino said.

Learning from this, individuals should avoid offering their national identity cards for registration of telephone SIM cards to people they do not know.

“If someone has lost their national IDs, they should confirm with the service provider if there are any other SIM cards which have been registered fraudulently using the ID. Likewise, people should avoid volunteering their phones for use by strangers.”

Owino said all cases of disappearances of family members, friends, workmates, schoolmates and neighbours should be reported to the police.

“It is a criminal offence to fail to report on knowledge of a person who is involved in terrorism activities. Consequently, people should report on persons who have travelled to join Al-Shabaab in Somalia and other terrorist organisations across the globe,” he said.

Any suspected foreigner who is believed to have sneaked into the country should be reported to the nearest government agency or office. Similarly, persons who are believed to have come back from Jihad theatres such as Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia should be reported immediately.

The public have the responsibility to report any public official involved in corruption for personal gains at the expense of national security. “Whereas public support has come in handy in disrupting radicalisation, recruitment and planned terror attacks thus far, more needs to be done to shield the country from terrorism.”

Generally, he argued, with the evolution of terrorism threat, Kenya has also evolved – both as a target of terrorist attacks and in its adoption of more inclusive and productive multiagency approaches. Public support and participation in pointing out terror threats, and robust multi-agency security arrangements have been key in addressing the terror threat in the country.

The police say terrorism is here to stay given the continued threat from the region. Prior to the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, like many other African countries, had largely been a spectator in the war against terror, watching from the sidelines as nations like the US, UK and Israel faced the brunt of the rising threat that was terrorism.

Among the earliest experiences of terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil was the 1980 attack at Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi. The attack was religiously and politically motivated, purely involving Israeli-Palestinian antagonism. Investigations and counter-actions were carried out by Israeli authorities with some assistance from Kenyan security agencies.

Then, in early nineties, Al-Qaeda would drive the terrorist agenda in the region, mainly using foreign operatives who infiltrated the country and the region. The foreign operatives laid down the infrastructure that would culminate into the attack that completely changed the face of terrorism in Kenya. The resultant counter-terrorism measures were mainly US-led, with Kenyan authorities only playing a key support role.