The Mombasa county assembly has adopted a resilience and violence extremism policy to help prevent violent extremism cases. The policy will promote strategies of co-existence and economic empowerment among state and non-state actors. This will help in improving the peaceful and dignified lives of Mombasa residents.

Hellen Mukami, 30, a resident of Witu village in Lamu County, is married and raising three children from her husband’s previous marriage. The Nation caught up with her on Wednesday last week in Mokowe village on the outskirts of the expansive Boni Forest as she queued to see a doctor at a free mobile field clinic organised by the Administration Police Border Patrol Unit (BPU) and supported by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism and the US Africa Command (Africom).

Security agencies in Lamu County have denied unfairly targeting pastoralist communities in the war against terrorism in the region. Some locals have complained about constant harassment from security agencies that felt they were either terrorists or were harbouring suspected terrorists.

Civil society organizations have expressed concern following recent findings by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue that indicated Meta and Facebook failed to stop the terrorist groups including Al-Shabab and the Islamic State from using its social media platforms. The study suggested the terrorist groups succeeded to a large extent in spreading hateful terrorist content in East Africa and Kenya in particular.

Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State are using Facebook to spread their hateful ideologies, grow audiences and broadcast their messaging in East Africa, with Kenya as their focus. This is according to a new report shared with the Nation by the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). According to ISD, there is a highly-coordinated online propaganda machine that relies on thousands-strong networks of Somali, Swahili and Arabic language and pages to seed its content on the platform, some of which may have been hacked from unsuspecting users.

In a rare occurrence, a Muslim cleric arrested in 2018 over terrorism, and who was acquitted yesterday, has astonished everyone by refusing to leave Kamiti maximum prison, alleging he will be executed by state security agents. However, the former Marsabit madrasa teacher, Sheikh Guyo Garso, will pay for his patronage of Kamiti prison for 30 days, as he pursues a suit he has filed in the High Court to compel the government to protect him.

The number of people killed in terror attacks reduced to 100 in 2021, down from 122 in 2020, a report released by the Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies (CHRIPS) has revealed. The index nearly reduced to a two-digit figure marking a transition from three-digit fatality figures reported in previous years. CHRIPS is a leading international African research centre based in Kenya that conducts policy relevant research on human rights, security, terrorism and counter-terrorism, violence, crime and policing.

Terrorist attacks in Kenya reduced from 69 in 2020 to 51 incidents reported in 2021, a report by the Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies has said. According to CHRIPS, the attacks intensified in January but decreased from February to April. The number of attacks in May and June also increased as well as December 2021.

In March last year, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations released images of a lone gunman who snatched a firearm from a traffic police officer at a Kisumu bus park and went on a shooting frenzy before he was lynched by a mob. An analysis of his actions led detectives from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit to conclude that he was not an ordinary criminal but someone who had received training in tactical manoeuvers and weapons handling.

Kenya remains in a state of heightened alert following travel warnings by French, US and European Union officials of imminent terrorist attacks. Kenya has suffered deadly terror attacks claimed by the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab. As a result it has beefed up security. Oscar Gakuo Mwangi has studied Kenya’s counter-terrorism policies and strategies. We asked him to unpack the intelligence behind terror alerts.