Kenyan national involved in Al-Shabaab's raid in Mogadishu mayor's office

Reuters picture

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The prime architect of last week's raid at the office of the Banadir regional Governor Yusuf Hussein Jimale is a Kenyan national who has been working with Al-Shabaab militants for a while now, the group announced in a pre-recorded audio, a tradition which it has practiced for over a decade.

Zubeyr Al-Muhaajir, the group said in the audio, coordinated and executed the attack which left over six civilians dead and dozens injured. Al-Shabaab was targeting Jimale, who has been spearheading the war against the militants within the capital Mogadishu, which is located in the Benadir region.

The bomber, the group further claimed, was born in Majengo estate, a suburb within the regional headquarters of the former Central province in Mt Kenya region. Curiously, the county [Nyeri] is not associated with violent extremism like the northern counties of Wajir, Garissa, and Mandera, or the coastal strip of Lamu.

But it is in 2019 that the government of Kenya linked a number of terrorists to Nyeri following the DusitD2 complex attack in Nairobi's leafy suburbs of Westlands which left at least 21 civilians dead, including a close relative of the then President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has since retired.

Former Interior Minister Fred Matiang'i confirmed that Nyeri was slowly being turned into an Al-Shabaab breeding cell, leading to the activation of sophisticated operations within the town and its environs. There has not been any recorded Al-Shabaab activity from the town, records indicate.

However, the audio by Al-Shabaab mentions one Mahir Khalid Ruziki but does not outrightly mention his role in the Mogadishu attack. A quick search shows that Riziki is an Al-Shabaab "graduate" of 2018 who underwent training in Somalia after sneaking from his native Kenya since he was born in Mombasa.

Riziki was widely mentioned by security forces in Kenya as the mastermind of the DusitD2 complex attack and closely worked with Ali Salim Gichunge alias Faruk, a son to a Kenya Defense Forces [KDF] member, who was brought up in Isiolo before relocating to Majengo in Nyeri, where al-Muhaajir coincidentally comes from.

CCTV footage from the scene showed the terrorist walking outside a manicured lawn before he blew himself up outside Secret Gardens restaurant at 3.05 pm. According to police reports, the suicide bomber killed six people at the restaurant in DusitD2 complex attack, but the figure would rise to 21 according to police records.

Just like in DusitD2 complex attack, all the six militants who are connected to the raid at Jimale's office were killed by elite Danab Special forces, the Federal Government of Somalia had confirmed. They disguised themselves in military gear associated with the newly absorbed Eritrean-trained Somali soldiers.

Foreigners have been for a long time associated with Al-Shabaab attacks, with the group also linking another Kenyan in the Manda Airfield raid a year later [Jan 5, 2020], which left three Americans dead, among them a service member. The US forces went on to kill five attackers at the camp.

Somalia is currently battling with the militants in central and southern parts, with the military recording over 500 Al-Shabaab deaths in the last five months. Al-Shabaab militants particularly foreigners are said to be running away from the country, due to sophisticated operations against them.

The US Africa Command, the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, and local militia have played an indispensable role in liberating several strategic towns in the country. The recent momentous capture was Gal'ad and Haradhere towns where the militants had dominated for years.

GAROWE ONLINE