Mombasa (Kenya) (AFP) – Kenyan police said Monday they arrested two men who were driving a vehicle packed with explosives in the Indian Ocean resort city of Mombasa.
“We have not established where the target was, but we have detained two terror suspects who were in the vehicle,” said Henry Ondiek of the Mombasa Criminal Investigation Department.
According to police, two homemade bombs were found in the vehicle, along with a mobile phone, which could have been used as a detonator.
“We were tipped off that the two were headed for an attack on an unspecified place and we laid an ambush and got them,” Ondiek said.
Another police source, requesting anonymity, said the two men were of Somali origin.
The vehicle was taken to Mombasa’s main police station and placed under tight security.
Kenya has suffered a string of attacks blamed on the Shebab Islamist group based in Somalia, including the September 2013 massacre in Nairobi’s Westgate mall in which at least 67 people were killed.
Kenya’s top security chiefs warned last month of “increased threats of radicalisation” from homegrown Islamists, singling out Mombasa’s Musa mosque as a specific centre encouraging extremism, along with two others.
Comments
About Author
