300 Kenyan Youths Leave Al-Shabaab Terror Group, Surrender to Authorities

At least 300 Kenyan youths aged below 30 years have left Al-Shabaab terrorist group and surrendered to the authorities. 

The youths, who had sneaked into Somalia to receive military training under Al-Shabaab, have been brought back to the country over the past six months by the Kenyan government in collaboration with civil society organizations and other stakeholders.

Al-Shabaab wanted to train the young people from the Coast region to use them to stage terror attacks in their own country.

Speaking in Mombasa on Friday, Canon Harun Rashid from the National Counter Terrorism Centre said the returnees are currently being deradicalized and disengaged from their terrorist actions and ideologies.

“The government has profiled them and is now guiding them so that they don’t slide back to terror activities. This has been made possible by engaging several civil society organizations, which have initiated reform programs for the benefit of the returnees,” he said.

“We are doing quite well. We used to see lots of youths being lured to join terror groups in Somalia and many would cross border almost every day but of late the number has really gone down, courtesy of this initiative.”

The young unemployed Kenyans had been lured to Somalia by Al-Shabaab with financial offers.

"We shall continue to follow up and bring back as many youths as possible from the terror groupings," Nyali Deputy County Commissioner Harun Kamau said.

In the past few years, there has been an increase in radicalization of desperate unemployed Kenyan youth by the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Shabaab terrorist group which operates from Somalia. 

This was after Kenya sent its troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the terrorist group following the kidnapping of foreigners on its soil.