ARE KENYAN STUDENTS TURNING TO TERRORISM......

Bottomline: when terrorists start attacking more complex establishments such as military installations, police stations, uptown malls and universities, it’s not the work of ordinary simple brains.

Home-grown terrorism has been on the ascendancy five years after Kenyan troops invaded Southern

Somali as part of operation Linda Nchi on October 16^th 2011. With an aim of taming Al Shabab militants who had perfected the art of kidnapping tourists and foreign aid workers inside Kenya then demand for ransom from parent countries something that made western countries such as Britain issue travel advisories to their citizens against visiting Kenya. This had economic ramifications as it affected the tourism sector which is amongst the leading foreign exchange earner.

The fight against terrorism is however far from over, the Al-Shabab seem to have changed their mode of operation from their pool of recruits which was traditionally from the ethnic Kenyans of Somali origin who are Muslims by religion staying in urban informal settlements to other non-Muslim recruits who are radicalised then later adopting Islamic names.

Going for the best brains seem to be a priority amongst Al-Shabab recruiters this is manifested when the terrorists start attacking more complex establishments such as military installations, police stations, uptown malls and universities, it’s not the work of ordinary simple brains. The precision by which these operations are carried clearly shows the militant group has a pool of intelligent, well-educated and brilliant minds within their ranks, most of whom are former or current Kenyan students. 

According to BBC News, close to a quarter of Al-Shabaab’s 7,000-9,000 forces are Kenyan. Many of them attracted to the high salaries for new recruits, which are reportedly more than $1,000. While the average monthly wage in Kenya is $76 ($912 annual). The biting unemployment rate making every unemployed graduate a potential terrorist, with indications that out of ten youths seven are unemployed in a country where the value system is defunct as everyone is busy looking for money nobody cares how he or she amasses wealth.

Inset : Elgiva Bwire  alias Mohamed Seif  Photo courtesy of  Philip Kamakya

Elgiva Bwire Oliacha also known as Mohamed Seif is amongst the first recruit of the ‘Golden Generation’ of intelligent terrorist. The young man who hailed from Budalangi in Busia county was an electrical engineer by trainning from Technical University of Kenya. He Pleaded guilty to 9 counts of serious crime including possession of arms cache. Being a member of Al Shabaab, possession of firearms without a certificate, causing grievous harm and engaging in an outlawed criminal activity.Bwire was responsible for a series of grenade attacks that took place in Nairobi in the months of September and October including the Kampala bus attack that left scores injured. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 27^th  October 2011.

 Abdul Hajira

The architect of the Pangani Police station car explosion that left four people dead, including himself and two police officer in 2014. Hajira was a son of a Kenya Defence Force (KDF) Officer based at Kahawa barracks in Nairobi. He also played for a top team at the Kenya Premier League (KPL) before starting his football club in Majengo slums .He went missing from his Nairobi home in 2010 joining the Alshaabab before resurfacing a year later to finish his Bachelor of Commerce degree at University of Nairobi. Blocking all his social media networks during the period of his disappearance to avoid being traced. 

Car wreck at Pangani police station Photo courtesy of Standard Media Group 

Abdirahim Mohamed Abdullahi

Described by peers as a brilliant upcoming lawyer, he later abandoned a promising profession in favour of the blinkered world of international terrorism. The brain behind the Garissa university college massacre in 2015 that left 148 dead. A privileged son of a Kenya Government administrative Chief Abdullahi Daqara of Bulla Jamhuri in Mandera County. A University of Nairobi Law graduate he went missing a year before the attack only for his name to hit national headlines after the attack.

Abdirahim Mohamed Abdullahi Photo courtesy of CBS News

Sheikh Ahmad Iman Ali
An engineer by training, an alumni of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture (JKUAT) and the current head the video production and propaganda according to Wardheernews, Dec 2015 report.He was declared the supreme leader of al-Shabaab's Kenyan branch and is believed to be the leader of student recruits within the ranks of the terror. Based in Somalia since 2009, Ali's recruitment efforts are believed to target Kenyan students according to security forces.

Sheikh Ahmad Iman Ali Photo Courtesy of The Daily Nation

Samuel Wanjala Wabwire

Also known as Salim Mohamed a name he took up after his conversion to Islam was expelled from Maseno University in 2011 for allegedly stabbing a student. Before his expulsion, he was pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. He is said to have been admitted to the university in 2011, the same year that he was expelled. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he was found guilty of recruiting and radicalising children Gotani primary school in Kilifi as a Madrassa teacher in Mombasa Law Courts in January 2016 after his arrest in April 2015.His intention was to conscript them into the Al Shabaab.

Samuel Wanjala Wabwire alias Salim Mohamed Image-Nation.

The number of students being arrested on suspicion of joining the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is alarming. The latest being Hassan Kassim Kizingo a second year Moi University student who was arrested at Kilindini, Mombasa last week for being in constant communication with the terror group. Other students who have been arrested on similar suspicion include Mohamed Shukri and Abdulrazak Abdinuur of Saratov State Medical University in Russia who were interns at Malindi Hospital, Maryam Said,Khadija Abdulkadir, Ummul Khayr, Hassanaen Ahmed a University of Nairobi biochemistry student, Kenyatta University Microbiology student Gloria Kavaya, Mohamed Abdi a student at Kampala International University who was an intern at Wote Hospital, Nuseiba Mohammed and fatuma Hanshi both of Kampala International University.

According to the Commission of University Education close to 44 students have abandoned their studies to join terror groups including ISIS in Libya and the Al Shabaab in Somalia. The number of current or former university students within the ranks of terror organizations largely remains unknown. According to the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Kenyan youth are said to be spending an average of eight hours a day on terror-related websites contacting extremists, majority of them are in the universities. NCTC director Isaac Ochieng said NTTC has names of students who have been radicalised and are enjoying salaries from Al-Shabaab and other militia groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda. “There is increased recruitment, training and indoctrination of the youth into terrorism cells. These terror groups are now targeting brilliant youths to recruit,” he said.

Al-Shabaab has infiltrated Kenya's institutions of higher learning, recruiting and radicalizing students. The poor monitoring systems in these institutions makes it easy for them to recruit with minimum detection making the country to lose highly trained, intelligent, informed and educated students to terror establishments. We might be winning the fight but we are losing the war against terrorism since our own intelligent students will be used to carry out more complex attacks with precision thus higher casualties on our populace.