Balala speaks out on Shabaab funds

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Cabinet minister Najib Balala (left) and nominated MP Amina Abdalla (right) on Friday reacted to a United Nations report naming them among Kenyans whose donations had been funnelled to the Somali terrorist group Al Shaabab.  

By PETER LEFTIE, pmutibo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Friday, July 29  2011 at  22:21

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Cabinet minister Najib Balala and nominated MP Amina Abdalla on Friday reacted to a United Nations report naming them among Kenyans whose donations had been funnelled to the Somali terrorist group Al Shaabab.

Mr Balala denied knowingly funding the activities of the terrorist group but maintained that he would continue supporting Islamic activities.

The report of the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea prepared for the Security Council exposes in great detail the activties of the terrorist group and its links with governments, businesses and individuals across the region.

Respopnsding to questions, Mr Balala admitted that he attended a fundraiser for a mosque described by the UN report as the nerve centre of the terror group’s activities in Kenya.

“I have never funded al Shabaab. I don’t approve of their activities and I have never supported fundamentalism,” Mr Balala said.

“I have been at the forefront in condemning the recruitment of young men to al Shabaab.

We as Muslim MPs met Honourable Saitoti and Ojode early last year and gave them information about the recruitment of young men to Al Shabaab,” the minister added.

Ms Abdalla, who allegedly made a donation of Sh500,000 for the same cause in February this year, declined to comment on the matter when contacted saying she had not read the report.

The report was scheduled for discussion at the security council in New York last night while the US State Department promised a response later.
The report of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea claimed that Mr Balala attended the fundraiser in aid of Riyadha Mosque in Nairobi’s Pumwani area in September 2009 and donated Sh200,000 which was wired to an account operated by the terrorist outfit that controls huge parts of Somalia.
“I remember very well, I gave a cash donation of Sh100,000 towards the construction of the mosque.

Where the money ended up is really not my business. All I know is that I was helping to build a mosque. I will continue supporting Muslim projects,” he said.
The report also says that it has no evidence to suggest that Mr Balala knew that the money would go towards Al Shabaab’s activities.
“The Monitoring Group has learned that on 12 September 2009, the Kenyan Minister of Tourism, Najib Balala made a “public cash donation” of KSH200,000 to a Riyadha Mosque reconstruction fundraising event.

The Minister’s donation was deposited into the PRMC’s Development Steering Committee’s account at Habib Bank (account no.

302178-03) — an account that was, at the time, overseen by ‘Amiir’ Ahmad Iman and other MYC members,” the report says.

“The Monitoring Gorup has received credible information indicating that that funds deposited into this and other accounts (PRMC Gulf African Bank) controlled by ‘Amiir’ Ahmad Iman were used at least in part to finance his passage to, and upkeep in, Somalia in late 2009.” 
According to the report, Ms Abdalla donated Sh500,000 towards the project but was not aware that the money would be used to fund Al Shabaab’s activities.

“In an interview with the Monitoring Group, the MP confirmed her close association with Ali Abdulmajid, a senior official of PRMC and Vice Chairman of Riyadha Mosque Committee, and acknowledged that she has frequently sought the assistance of MYC members for campaigning purposes. But she described the funds as a contribution to Riyadha Mosque’s reconstruction fundraising and denied any knowledge of linkages between PRMC or MYC and Al-Shabaab,” the report says.

“The Monitoring Group believes that the donation in question was solicited by PRMC members under false pretences, in part for funding MYC activities in Somalia, and has no evidence to suggest willful wrongdoing on the part of the MP,” it concludes.

Also said to have attended a fundraiser in September last year whose proceeds went into funding the terrorist group’s activities include another Nominated MP Sheikh Mohamed Dor and former Kamukunji MP Simon Mbugua.

Former Kamukunji MP Simon Mbugua said: “I was invited but I did not attend. But it is true that many youths in Kamukunji, some of whom I know, have joined Al Shabaab, These are boys who are driven by poverty and unemployment. They are smuggled into Somalia through Lamu and Malindi,” he said.

We could not reach Sheikh Dor as his phone went unanswered.

The UN report detailed shocking details of how hundreds of Kenyan youths including minors were undergoing military training in Nairobi before joining Al Shabaab. It named Ahmad Iman Ali as the leader of the Al Shabaab cell in Nairobi, responsible for recruiting and ferrying Kenyan youth to Somalia to fight alongside the terrorist outfit.

It says Mr Iman currently controls between 200 and 500 fighters, majority of them non-Somali Kenyans from Nairobi’s Majengo slums.

The Monitoring Group warns that Mr Iman plans to launch large scale terror attacks in Kenya and across East Africa.

“During a 13 September 2010 lecture, addressing MYC combatants and other Swahili-speaking fighters in Somalia, Ahmad Iman dissuaded Kenyan Muslims from engaging in national politics, urging them instead to “Chinja” (cut), “Chonga” (peel) and “Fyeka” (slash)” the throats of the [Kenyan] infidels and “to hit back and cause blasts [in Kenya]” similar to the Kampala bombings,” the report states.

“In another undated message, uploaded to the Internet on 30 December 2010, Ahmad Iman encouraged MYC members to begin jihad in Kenya by attacking its institutions. Part of the message urged its members to contemplate “...a man who says, strap the bombs on me and let me blow myself up in the Parliament building of Kenya,” the report adds.

Additional reporting by Kevin Kelley in New York