NAIROBI, 11 April 2004 — Kenyan authorities will next week deport five Somali nationals for alleged links to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The five are among at least 14 people arrested last month at Eastleigh, a crime-prone residential district in Nairobi, on suspicion of involvement in various terrorism-related activities in the east African nation.
“Kenyan security agents have obtained a deportation order allowing them to repatriate the foreigners. Armed security agents will escort them to the Kenya-Somali border on Tuesday,” the Daily Nation said.
The paper said, quoting a source in the office of the president, that one of the detainees is “suspected to have links with terrorist cells operating from Somalia.”
A senior police officer said that military and intelligence officers “were this week trying to obtain orders to repatriate some Somalis who were arrested in an anti-terrorism swoop last month, because Kenya does not have anti-terrorism laws that would enable prosecutors to directly charge suspects with extremist activities.”
Numerous US officials have in the past said Somalia is home to people or organizations linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda and that members of the group held responsible for the Sept.11 attacks on New York and Washington might try to seek refuge in Somalia.
Extremists have twice attacked Kenya. The first time was on Aug. 7, 1998, when the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania were destroyed by massive car-bomb attacks claimed by the Al-Qaeda network, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans.
