29-year-old terror suspect arrested by ATPU in Nairobi, 95 phones recovered

A multi-agency security team led by the Anti-Terror police today morning arrested a suspect linked to terrorist activities.

The 29-year-old Mohamed Abubakar Hussein was found in possession of 95 used Nokia (kabambe) phones.

He has since been placed in custody and is assisting authorities with further investigations.

“While we have enhanced our security presence across the country, we urge the public to share information on any suspicious activities within their areas,” police said.

The arrest comes a few days after the capture of a Kenyan fugitive and terror suspect Rashid Mohammed Salim, in DRC Congo.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations is liaising with Congolese authorities through Interpol, on the arrest of the suspect.

The Anti-Terror sleuths are seeking to grill the suspect in relation to the crimes he committed in the country before taking flight.

Salim fled the country in December 2020, and sneaked into Congo (DRC) through Uganda, where he has been a key member of an Islamist rebel group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

The terror suspect has been on DCI’s watchlist after he was charged with terror offences in a Mombasa court and jumped bail, prompting the court to issue a warrant for his arrest.

In 2016, Salim left Kenya for Turkey allegedly to join a Turkish university for undergraduate studies.

However, in the same year, Turkish authorities deported him back to the country after he was arrested trying to cross over to Syria.

The suspect was released pending production of evidence from Turkish authorities.

“A year later, the suspect escaped our dragnet in an intelligence led operation by ATPU detectives, after explosives were recovered in a house, he was occupying in Kwale county,” read DCI report.

“The suspect who was determined to fulfil his jihadist ideals, was intercepted by detectives at the Moi International airport in Mombasa, on May, 12, 2019 as he attempted to flee the country to Sudan.”

He was placed behind bars and charged with various terror offenses, related to the explosives materials discovered during the raid in Kwale, in 2017.

The court granted him bail and he continued attending court sessions until his disappearance in 2020.

During interrogation, the terror suspect told detectives that he had been looking forward to fulfilling Jihad before going to paradise, where 72 virgins waited to surprise him.

Together with two others, wanted suspects from Malindi town identified as Murad Suleiman and Mohammud Salim, the fugitive sneaked to Congo on December, 3, 2020 and informed his family through a short text message that he had gone to a faraway land to fight Jihad and would never come back home.

According to DCI, the suspect joined the ADF, an insurgency that began in 1996 and which is responsible for hundreds of deaths of innocent civilians in Congo and western Uganda.

The terror group is believed to be affiliated to the Islamic State after the latter claimed responsibility for an ADF attack in 2019 under the ‘Central Africa Province’, an administrative division of the Islamic State.

Salim is the author of propaganda videos depicting machete killings and arrests of civilians in the regions of eastern Congo.

He has previously been captured on a videoclip beheading a man believed to be the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) announced on January 28.