Details of how a secret Kenyan Paramilitary team has taken out a dozen alleged terrorists in the country and beyond has emerged.
The covert Kenyan paramilitary team, informally known as the Rendition Operations Team but formally bears the title ‘Rapid Response Team (RRT)’ was trained by American CIA and is supported by UK’s Intelligence M16.
RRT, a special squad has a team of 60 commandos drawn from Kenyan Paramilitary General Service Unit’s Recce Company. The 60 commandos are highly-trained on tactical and counter-terror operations, skills which have left a trail of deaths in hushed tones.
According to an investigative report by Declassified UK the team is behind the controversial killings of alleged terror suspects. Their operation is always swift and clandestine but always wipes out the target.
Declassified UK reported that the team has been on America’s payroll since 2004 while it is assisted by the CIA with intelligence as well as Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). But it is Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) operating as M16 that identifies, tracks and fixes the location of targets and makes a decision if it should be a kill or capture.
Usually, the RRT commandos operate in disguise and use vehicles with fake number plates or pose as aid workers in refugee camps to “shield perpetrators of abuses from any shred of accountability”.
The secret Kenyan paramilitary team has raided the homes of terror suspects at ungodly hours and the capture of high-value suspects registered or a rendition of killings which never go-to book goes down quietly.
For the last 16 years that this unit has been in operation, cites reports from a host of CIA, US State Department and Kenyan paramilitary officials, it has taken down dozens of terror suspects and captured some a dozen of high-value targets too.
A former senior CIA counter-terrorism said that RRT’s formation was “an indigenous solution to an indigenous problem.”
To remain a deadly team working in plain sight, once a target is neutralized – taken out – RRT leaves the scene and lets local police take over, a tactic that has made the team operate in the shadows for over 10 years.
An RRT officer, however, said that they always want to capture the target but if he/she poses any threat, they do not hesitate to take them out in a split of a second.
“I don’t have to shoot if I don’t see your hand because the hand is the most dangerous part…But if you have something in your hands, I don’t have to spare you because you mean danger to me.”
Despite their lethal tactical and counter-terrorism knowledge, some of RRT team members have opted to venture into the private security sector for better pay and working conditions.
This has forced CIA’s paramilitary liaison to RRT to churn out good pay, allowances and bonuses every time there is an operation and in times of mission went well.
The amount which is a 30 percent boost in their salaries every month is paid by the US embassy in Nairobi.
In case of an injury, the CIA pays a cashout for treatment at Aga Khan’s private wing in Nairobi.
