Kenya : Officials on high alert following bomb scare

Medeshi 3 Nov , 2008
Kenya: Officials on high alert following bomb scare
Detectives have established that the two suspects arrested in connection with 600 electronic detonators had attempted to acquire another batch from a military officer a month ago.
The suspects had approached the officer and revealed that, although they had some detonators, their group still needed another 80mm capacity batch for an unspecified mission.
The suspects said they would buy the detonators at any price the officer quoted.
Detectives then began trailing the suspects, hoping to arrest the group and seize any explosives in their possession.
Working on a tip-off, they trailed a bus headed for Wajir and stopped it along Thika road.
The security agents seized 600 detonators, which a bomb expert said are capable of setting off a huge bomb.
Anti-terrorism police detectives are trying to establish if the suspects have more detonators and where they were destined.
A police source privy to the investigations revealed that one of the suspects had been under investigation for the 2007 explosion near the Ambassadeur Hotel in which one person was killed.
He had been sought for arrest but escaped from the country until a month ago when he approached the military officer.
Alerted the police
“The military officer reported the matter to his seniors who alerted the police immediately,” a senior police officer said.
One of the suspects arrested claimed that he resides in Kariobangi and had been given the detonators by a man from Langata to deliver to Wajir.
The other suspect, who was arrested later in a hotel in Westlands, is also helping police with investigations. The two are being held at an undisclosed police station.
Security has been heightened around the country after the discovery of the detonators on the Wajir-bound bus and last week’s explosions in Somaliland and Puntland.
Security officials at the United Nations’ regional headquarters in Gigiri are on high alert after five simultaneous explosions in Somalia’s breakaway regions of Somaliland and Puntland targeted the offices of the UNDP and the Ethiopian consulate.
Over 60 UN staff based in Somalia and Puntland have been evacuated to Kenya and are staying in two hotels in Westlands. The staff began arriving on Friday after their stations were declared dangerous.
The explosions, suspected to have been the handiwork of al-Qaeda operatives, happened while Kenya was hosting the Inter Governmental Authority meeting to discuss the future of Somalia.
Police have also increased the number of roadblocks along the road from Nairobi to Garissa and are carrying out thorough security checks.
Sent a memo
Police and intelligence officers in Wajir, where one of the suspects was travelling to, have also been put on high alert and asked to investigate any suspicious goings-on.
In addition, a Kenya Revenue Authority commissioner, Wambui Namu, sent a memo to all regional officers around the country calling for increased vigilance ahead of the US Presidential election scheduled for Tuesday.
However, the police said that the memo from Kenya Revenue Authority was a routine one to advise all government officials working in strategic posts to be observant in the performance of their official duties.
The Nation