KDF officer claim terrorists tried to infiltrate highly guarded army base

By JUMA KWAYERA

Anti-terrorism police are investigating dramatic claims of an Al Shabaab attempt to hit at the heart of the Kenya Defence Forces in the early weeks of ‘Operation Linda Nchi’. This follows the report of a bizarre plot by a junior army soldier accused of desertion.

Police officers who have listened to his tale are unsure whether it is true or whether it is a cock-and-bull story from a troubled young soldier unhappy with his job.

When contacted for comment, the Department of Defence denied receiving any report about unauthorised people entering a KDF facility. DoD, however, confirmed it was aware of the ATPU’s involvement in the matter.

Senior Private Benson Maina spilled the beans two weeks ago in an exclusive interview with The Standard On Saturday. At the runaway soldier’s request, two officers from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit sat in on the interview.

Maina says he was blackmailed into several meetings with alleged terrorists that wanted to infiltrate one of the country’s security installations. He says he first met them inside a secure facility that they had succeeded in entering unchallenged in January.

According to the junior officer, the men seemed interested in the sabotage of newly acquired aircraft. He says the terrorists wanted to limit the effectiveness of Kenya’s air attacks, which were having a punishing effect on the insurgents.

The alleged incident took place three months after Kenya’s military tanks entered Somalia in “hot pursuit” of the Al Qaeda-linked group. This was about the same time another failed Al Shabaab plot to assassinate two Kenyan officials disclosed by the Internal Security ministry. No arrests have been made in both cases.

When told about the claims, Defence Assistance Minister David Musila expressed shock. His Internal Security counterpart Orwa Ojode, who recently died in an unexplained Kenya Police helicopter crash, termed the affair “dangerous”. The army, on the other hand, says this is a case of an officer facing disciplinary measures making things worse with his dangerous lies.

“We are treating this case as one of gross indiscipline,” says DoD public affairs officer Capt Thomas Mwanga. “His allegations can only jeopardise the reputation of KDF as they lack material evidence.”

The Senior Private claims he prevented two suspected terrorists from accessing an installation in Embakasi housing the Kenya Army’s 50th Air Calvary Batallion. He says the incident took place on the night of January 12, just before he fled his workplace in mysterious circumstances.

The Kenya Air Force has its main fighter base in Nanyuki and its main transport base (Moi) at Eastleigh in Nairobi. It also has forward operating bases in Wajir, Mandera and Nyeri. The army, on the other hand, relies on the Embakasi-based 50th ACB for direct anti-tank air support and reconnaissance.

Like the rest of the defence forces, 50th ACB has been undergoing significant expansion in recent years, with the acquisition of Russian Mi-28 and Chinese ZW9E attack helicopters, among other equipment. About a year before the alleged incident, it received Ulan Ude Mi-171 attack helicopters from Russian state owned corporation Rosoboronexport.

These choppers were involved in the action in Somalia. The base also received Russian-made Kamov 50 Hokum helicopter gunships last year and houses French-made Rafale fighter jets, both of which have been used in Somalia. Destroying any of this equipment would have set back Operation Linda Nchi.

In his statement to the ATPU, Maina claims to have foiled an attempt by two people to enter the secure facility at Embakasi. This allegedly set off began a series of odd encounters that escalated to a kidnapping on Nairobi’s Moi Avenue in February.

Minister not briefed
“On January 12, while on duty at around 8.30pm (at the medical batallion), I was approached by two men who claimed to be warrant officers in the Embakasi Kenya Air Force Technical Training College Department,” the officer claims. He says the men asked for him by name and for the detachment’s commander.

The officer says the men were interested in him because he is the custodian of several key passwords to critical security information.

“They told me they had been posted to Kaftec from Laikipia Airbase in November last year, after which they had proceeded on leave in December before reporting back in January.”

The two men, dressed in army fatigues, wanted access to Kaftec and the 50th ACB aircraft hangars. However, he says he noticed that manner in which his visitors had folded their sleeves indicated they were either trainees or impostors.

Maina claims he refused them entry, but did not report the matter to anyone. Strangely, he agreed to meet them again at a city restaurant later to discuss his computer knowledge. He says he met five men, including the fake Kaftec officers, who threatened him repeatedly, asked about classified information and stole his mobile phone.

Again, he did not report the matter to anyone. Instead, he made plans to flee to Dubai. Maina says he was attacked again in February, taken to Eastleigh, his military ID card and cell-phone confiscated and threats made against his life and that of his father and wife. His captors, he said, warned him to cooperate with them then drove him to Thika town and left him there.

The soldier now claims his kidnapper was Mr Emrah Erdogan, a foreigner named as a suspect in a fertiliser bomb attack on Moi Avenue three weeks ago.

However, Erdogan (alias Imraan al-Kurdy alias Salahaddin al-Kurdy) was reported to be in Kismayu at the time of the alleged incident. Investigators also doubt this thread of the soldier’s narrative, because Al Shabaab do not release captives this easily.

Oddly, the police say they are holding a man from Nakuru identified only as Ochieng’ who claims to have been dumped in Thika by Erdogan. Maina says he went into hiding after the kidnapping, only emerging when the police published pictures of terror suspects Ahmed Khaled Andreas Martin Muller and Erdogan.

The two are suspected to have been behind the Assanands House, Moi Avenue bomb blast. After Erdogan’s arrest in Tanzania this week, however, ATPU officers chose not to seek his extradition to Kenya for trial or interrogation over the Assanands attack or any other terror activity.

Says Musila when told of the incident: “It sounds strange and shocking.” The Assistant minister had not been briefed on the matter. The police are also sceptical.

Something rewarding
Maina says he is now afraid he may be court-martialed for failing to report a security threat or harmed by the suspected terrorist of Somali origin who tried to wrest vital security information from him.

Capt Thomas Mwanga, confirmed SP Maina is under investigation. He says DoD want him to shed light on why he travelled out of the country without clearance. He added military intelligence is in possession of a statement Maina recorded with the ATPU. He says the fact that Maina did not report the matter immediately raises serious questions about him and his story.

“His own conduct raises serious questions about his credibility,” he says. “If he feared for the safety of his family, what stops the same people he claims threatened him from coming for him and the family (now that he has contacted the media)?”

Police officers who have interrogated him say there are loose ends in his allegations that need to be tidied up before his information can be treated as credible. He seems to have been pressured into joining the army in 2007 by his father, a senior ranking military officer, and to have been dissatisfied with his low rank and poor pay.

At the time he went away, his Laikipia-based wife was pregnant, taking care of a three-month-old child and looking for a school for their five-year-old. He was also struggling to repay a loan he had taken from the Co-operative Bank of Kenya.

In his statement he admits telling his father and wife, both in the armed forces, he wanted to leave his job with the KDF medical battalion for something more rewarding. Indeed, it was only after a failed attempt to get work in Dubai that he returned home claiming to have fled for his life.

Police officers doubt the officer was approached to join the terror group or run errands for them. But they do not rule out the possibility of Al Shabaab plotting to breach security at military bases and are continuing their investigations.