NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Kenyan police Monday said they are holding four men on suspicion of trying to leave the country to join the Islamic State group in Libya, as authorities worry that the increasing number of citizens joining the extremist organization could be a sign that IS is trying to create a presence in this East African country.
The four men were on a bus bound for the Uganda border when armed policemen stopped it at a roadblock on March 1 and arrested them, police said.
Police were on the lookout for young men and women going to Sudan through Uganda, the route commonly used by the Kenyan recruits going to Libya, said police officials who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press about the ongoing investigation. The four matched this description, they said.
The four men arrested – Mohamed Kassim, Faraj Swaleh alias Mustafa Kheri, Ali Bwabnadi and Kassim Ahmed alias Abdirahman Saidi – appeared in court in the coastal city of Mombasa Monday. The magistrate granted police the authority to hold the suspects for an additional 30 days to make further investigations before filing charges.
Samuel Ouma, the officer investigating the case, told the court that Kassim, Swaleh and Ahmed are facing separate charges of extremist activities in the coastal town of Lamu where they had been released on bail.