The Kenyan Government has targeted suspected financiers of terrorist organisation, al-Shabab in a new policy against insecurity.
The government on Wednesday froze assets and funds of nine Kenyans suspected of being financiers of the terrorist organisation which has spread into Kenya from neighbouring Somalia.
According to Kenyan Interior Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang’I said the affected individuals identified as Halima Ali, Waleed Zein, Sheikh Boru, Mohammed Ali, Nuseiba Haji, Abdimajit Hassan, Mohammed Ali Abdi, Muktar Ali and Mire Abdullahi Elmi were invited by the police back in march to explain their involvement with the funding of al-Shabab activities in Kenya and Somalia.
The interior minister said he had no choice but to order the freezing of funds and properties of the aforementioned individuals and entities, while issuing a statement in Nairobi.
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The affected individuals were running their individual businesses including mobile money transfer services called Mpesa shops in the Eastleigh district of Nairobi. The area is mostly inhabited by ethnic Somali migrants.
Authorities accused them of bankrolling al-shabab responsible for several deadly attacks which has killed scores of people inside Kenya. The interior minister said the action was taken because it is necessary to deny the terrorists the resources to operate freely by choking their funding networks.
He said, “As part of our comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy, we continue to disrupt terrorist operations with a sole focus on bringing to book the perpetrators, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts in line with our national laws and international obligations.”
He said the move shows the resolve of the Kenyan government to bring perpetrators of violence against Kenyans to justice. He also revealed that al-shabab is planting spies and operatives among the civilian population to carry out violent attacks against the Kenyan people and government.
“We shall neither surrender into the hands of terrorism nor play into the narrative propounded by terrorists of discrimination along ethnic and religious lines in this war. The only way to deny terrorists the means to threaten our way of life is to choke their facilitation networks,” the interior minister added.
Kenya became a target for the terror group after it sent troops into Somalia to help contain it in 2011. Al-shabab is an affiliate of Al-Qaeda and has engaged in a long struggle to create an Islamic state in the country once regarded as the Jewel of Africa.
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