Somali’s Military court has sentenced a Kenyan national after finding him guilty of associating with outlawed terror groups.
Aden Mohamed a 28-year-old Kenyan man according to Garowe Online has been associating with Islamic State (IS) as a fighter in Somalia since 2017.
Mohamed hails from Wajir County.
In the ruling on Thursday, he was sentenced together with two other Somali nationals – Abhir Mohamed (47) and Mohamud Shiniyow – who were found guilty of perpetrating terror attacks in Puntland state.
Abshir and Shiniyow were handed a 20-year jail term for their attacks in Puntland and assassinations in other states in Somalia, Garowe Online further reported.
It is still remains a mystery how Aden managed to cross over to Somalia and became a lethal fighter for IS.
He joins a list of scores of Kenyan youths who have crossed over to Somalia and been radicalized with the intent of turning them into militia who come back to unleash terror in their mother country.
In the Westgate terror attack in 2013, some of the militia who executed the attack were Kenyans.
In 2015’s Garissa University Terror attack where more than 147 people lost their lives, one of the killers was a law graduate who was radicalized and came back to execute a mission.
Abdirahim Abdullahi was the son of a chief in Mandera County. His father had already reported him to be missing.
The chief had been working with police to get to his son who he was aware crossed over to Somalia.
In 2019, the terror attack on Dusit D2 Complex was also executed by a group of Kenyans
The National Counter Terrorism Centre in its war against the terror group has put in place measures to help in de-radicalisation of those that have disengaged from terrorism or violent extremist groups as well as reintegration of such persons into the society.
Last month, Inspector-General of Police Hillary Mutyambai said several counties now have county level action plans to boost the national action plans in terror fight.
So far, there are no absolute figures to ascertain the number of radicalised youths who have de-radicalised and reintegrated into the society, although over 100 youths defected from Al-Shabaab and were enrolled into the national amnesty programme in 2015.