This archive report was first published on 19 October 2019.
On October 12th, 2019, a devastating attack on the Harhar GSU camp in Garissa County left 10 General Service Unit (GSU) officers dead. The police have since launched a manhunt for Abdullahi Banati, the suspected mastermind behind the attack.
According to the police, Banati planned the attack alongside Al-Shabaab operatives based in the Daadab camp, which has been linked to several other terrorist attacks. Preliminary investigations revealed that Banati and his team operate along the Kenya-Somali border and have been executing attacks against both the public and security forces.
“Police have traced the activities of Banati and his team of militants to the border and it is suspected that he escaped to Somalia with the rest of the operatives,” said the police in a statement.
Banati is reported to have joined the militant group in 2012 and took part in the attack on the Baure Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) camp in 2015, where 11 of his colleagues were killed. He was injured in the attack but went into hiding, only to resurface in 2018 when he took part in several attacks along the Somalia border.
Police have now appealed to members of the public with any information on the suspect to report it to them immediately. A joint patrol team of officers drawn from the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), Administration Police, Rapid Border Patrol Unit, and Kenya Police Service have been deployed to comb the area around the scene of the incident.
