Hiiraan Online
Saturday, October 17, 2015
NAIROBI (HOL) - Police in Kenya have arrested a local doctor linked to the Al-Qaeda linked group in Somalia Saturday, as the East African nation is struggling to prevent further attacks by militants who killed hundreds of people in attacks across Kenya.
Police officials said that soldiers acting on an intelligence information have arrested the doctor Yaqub Abdi Omar, 29 in Marsabit county, western Kenya where he operated as a local medical specialist.
Local Detectives and criminal investigators who led the investigations against the doctor have arrested him as he visited the Marsabit County Referral hospital along with other young men whom police suspected to have been trying to collect information from the medical facility.
The county’s police officers said they are hunting for three more ‘accomplices’, including Somalis who were linked to the arrested doctor.
Marsabit CCIO Bernard Barasa told reporters that the arrested suspects paid a visit to the hospital under the guise of visiting a female patient in the hospital.
The suspects have also queried about the faith of patients in the hospital, drawing the attention of the guards at the hospital who tipped off the officer at a nearby police station, according to Mr. Barasa.
“We shall come back to visit you again.” One suspect told the patients, Barasa recalled.
The development comes as Kenyan security forces have boosted security across the country to prevent further attacks by militants who threatened attacks in Kenya.
Kenya experiences series of attacks by AlShabab after the country deployed troops in Somalia to fight the militant group who were blamed for attacks and kidnappings of foreigners in the Kenyan soil.
The Kenyan government has since played down militants’ threats and insisted it troops would stay in Somalia until Somalia gets stabilized.