After the Dusit terror attack that left 21 dead , Security agencies immediately started to chalked out plans to thwart the nefarious aims of terror groups.
During investigation missions to unravel how the terror attack was planned and executed , exclusive details have emerged how Somalia-based terrorists group passes orders to their operatives in Kenya. The telephonic conversations have been intercepted by intelligence agencies.
Kenyans Intelligence Bureau through their intelligence and acting on tip off discovered a sleeper cell used to plan the terror attack that had been active for months and remained underground without raising suspense.
A sleeper cell is a group of operatives, spies or terrorists, living in secret among a targeted community waiting for instructions or an opportunity to act.
In a raid conducted, police discovered a cavity in the house in which the attacker had kept several weapons.
Upon further investigations, Police identified 25 year old Mahir Khalid Riziki as the suicide bomber who blew himself up at Riverside complex.
Riziki had been on the police radar for long with security agencies posting his photos as a wanted man in 2014 after being linked to a series of terrorist activities.
Riziki was a seasoned terrorist on the run and was a member of an Alshabaab terror cell led by Ismael Mohamed Shosi alias Ismael Mmanga which was tasked with killing security personell in Mombasa before he fled to Tanzania.
He would then relocate to Somalia where he joined the terror group on the ground and received training before being dispatched for his evil mission.
During his stay in Somalia, he kept in touch with his family and confirmed to them in 2015 that he was in Somalia where he had joined the extremist group.
Most recently, he reportedly contacted his wife Suhaila Mwalim Bakari in November and December 2018 to find out about her status and that of his family. Suhaila never reported about her husband to the police.
Meanwhile the cell in Kiambu was in waiting for Riziki.
The Standard quoted security sources revealing that the suicide bomber sneaked into the country on January 13 through Elwak in Mandera County then to Takaba.
From there he boarded a Moyale Raha bus in Marsabit town to Nairobi and met Ali Salim Gichunge in the cell who led the attack at Muchatha.
Riziki was in constant communication with Ali Salim Gichunge whom the police say was part of seven-man squad and the grand master planner.
Salim Gichunge lived in house number E9 with a woman we identified as Violet Kemunto Omwoyo who is alleged to have been arrested by Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) officers on Tuesday night, as an operation to neutralise the terrorists was ongoing at dusitD2.
The couple was secretive and rarely interacted with neighbours. Up to Wednesday morning, Salim and Violet had never commented on the estate’s Whatsapp group since the time they were added in October last year.