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Al Hijra, the new deadly Al shabaab wing in Kenya

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United States say Al Hijra group is a terrorist group affiliated with Al shabaab, (Courtesy)

NAIROBI—Kenya-based wing of Al-Shabaab, Al-Hijra, has been added to the US list of terrorist organisations.

Al Shabaab Terror Activities have made the group to set operational base in Kenya for easier patrols of vulnerable areas. The Islamist group is believed to have active cells in Nairobi’s Eastleigh, South-C and Hurlingham estates and Majengo, Kibera slums.

“Al Hijra has openly engaged in Al-Shabaab recruiting in Kenya and facilitated travel of Al-Shabaab members to Somalia for terrorism purposes,” a report by the United States stated.

Al-Hijra is a covert group of primarily Kenyan Somali and non-Somali Muslim followers of al-Shabab in East Africa. It is reportedly led by Shaykh Ahmad Iman Ali, who left Kenya to join al-Shabab in Somalia .

Kenyans affiliated with Al-Hijra, and consequently with Al-Shabaab, may have played a role in major terrorist attacks inside Kenya in recent years, including the Westgate Mall massacre in 2013 and the attack on Garissa University College in 2015.

As the attack on the Westgate mall unfolded, al-Shabab claimed responsibility through Twitter posts, stating that they sent men armed with AK-47s into the shopping mall to retaliate against Kenya’s invasion of Somalia in 2011.

The number of youths joining terror groups like Al-Shabaab, has reduced significantly in the recent past, according to the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights.

 

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