Kenya freezes assets of nine suspected terror financiers as it bolsters war on terrorism
The Kenyan government has frozen bank accounts and properties belonging to nine terror suspects linked to the Somalia-based al-Shabaab terror group.
The suspects include two persons also linked to a financial network that supports the Islamic State, which is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths globally.
The two, Halima Adan Ali and Waleed Ahmed Zein, were also sanctioned by the United States in 2019 and 2018 respectively. At the time, the U.S. State Department Zein had established an intricate ISIS financial facilitation network spanning Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Eastern Africa.
“The only way to deny terrorists the means to threaten our way of life is to choke their facilitation networks and this I why I have published the forgoing list so that they can no longer finance Al-Shabaab operations within our borders,” said Fred Matiang’i, the Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Interior & Coordination of National Government.
Matiang’i published the names of the suspects alongside their Iidentification and passport numbers. He said the move was necessary to deny the terrorists the means of threatening lives by “choking their facilitation networks”.
He confirmed that the nine suspects had been identified as key in bankrolling al-Shabaab which has conducted several attacks in both Kenya and Somalia, killing thousands and destroying property.
Kenya has been a regular target for attacks by al-Shabaab militants, most of whom were suicide bombers. The country has deployed its military into Somalia in efforts to nip the threat of terrorism from its bud.
