Kenya offers $20,000 bounty for suspected female terrorist

Kenya has offered 20,000-dollar reward for information that may lead to the arrest of a woman terror suspect believed to be hiding in a refugee camp in its northeastern border region.

The authorities have also released a picture of Rukia Faraj, who is believed to be an al-Shabaab operative in a refugee camp in Garissa County.

“She is wanted for facilitating movement of youth to Somalia to join her husband who is planning an attack in Kenya,” the police said in a statement issued on Friday.

Faraj’s husband, Ramadhan Kufungwa, a wanted terrorist, was accused of being responsible for the grenade attacks and assassinations of moderate clerics and security officers in Mombasa County.

The report says Faraj is also reported to be assisting Kufungwa in planning fresh attacks in Kenya, by helping him move explosives and other weapons from Somalia into Kenya’s northeastern region.

The bounty on Faraj comes after a cache of firearms and explosive was recovered in Garissa County on Wednesday night.

Police believe the weapons were to be used against vital government installations and religious institutions.

Northeastern Regional Coordinator, Mohamud Saleh, said on Friday that the breakthrough follows the arrest of more dangerous al-Shabaab suspects who provided crucial information that led to the unearthing of weapons.

Saleh said he had ordered all landlords and commercial facilities owners to provide detailed identities of their tenants to their chiefs.
The chiefs will in turn submit the same to the county commissioners, who subsequently share the information with the police for action within the next 14 days.

“We believe some of these criminals are occupying or are being harbored in some of these private premises,” he said.

Saleh said the Kenyan government was closely collaborating with their Somali counterparts in order to eradicate all criminal elements along the border.