STEPHEN MUDIARI | NATION A general view of Eastleigh shopping centre in Nairobi. There are booming retail and wholesale businesses in the area. A United Nation’s report identifies Eastleigh as the hub for Somali-based Al-Shabaab millitants.
By PETER NG’ETICH, pngetich@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Sunday, July 31 2011 at 14:06
Posted Sunday, July 31 2011 at 14:06
A United Nation’s report identifies Eastleigh in Nairobi as the hub for Somali-based Al-Shabaab millitants.
The centre in the outskirts of Kenya's capital is allegedly used to distribute Al-Shabab militants.
An suspected smuggler, Abdirahman Abdi alias Salawat, - a Somali national who allegedly obtained Kenyan citizenship falsely leads the trade.
He possesses two Kenyan passports (numbers A739601 and A183790) under the names of “Abdi Warsame Dirie”, which he uses for international travel.
The UN Monitoring Group report says Salawat works with Abdullahi Abdinur Mohamed alias Topolino in the trade which started in October 2004.
Salawat has acquired a reputation of a ‘facilitator’ of choice for Somalis who don’t want to risk encountering immigration difficulties in Kenya.
Together with Topolino, he rented a property in Eastleigh for Sh350,000 per month along 10th Street which came to be known as Top Ten Hotel until late 2008.
The centre is reported to have been involved in smuggling members of Somali and armed opposition groups and their sympathisers to Europe and other international destinations.
Topolino is reported to have admitted that the hotel served as a hub for buying and selling passports and illegal procurement of visas, describing it as the work of immigration brokers known as mukalas but denied that such services were extended to Al-Shabaab members or their families.
The report says the establishment served as a hub for trafficked, stolen and forged passports, travel documents, Kenyan identification cards and to some extent drugs.
“In 2009, as armed conflict in south central Somalia intensified, the hotel began to receive members of armed opposition groups, including injured fighters, smuggled into Kenya to recuperate,” the report says.
It added: “The Monitoring Group learned that during the period it was not uncommon to find injured Somalis staying at hotels in Eastleigh and elsewhere in Nairobi, including Transitional Federal Government Soldiers.”
The report says Busia border point along the Kenya/Uganda road is the most porous of all the entry and exit points in the country.
“Somalis travelling from Europe and beyond in order to join Al-Shabaab have often been routed by Salawat through Uganda, via the notoriously porous border post at Busia,” the report said.
“Somalis travelling from Europe and beyond in order to join Al-Shabaab have often been routed by Salawat through Uganda, via the notoriously porous border post at Busia,” the report said.
It added: “In most cases, the smuggled individual is accompanied by an agent of the broker who negotiate with immigration officials at the border should the need arise. Once in Kenya, the individual is accommodated in a safe house while awaiting new documentation — usually Kenyan national identification cards — in order to travel to Somalia.”
The report said for instance in October 2010, Salawat facilitated the passage, via Nairobi, of three individuals travelling from Europe to Somalia in order to fight for Al-Shabaab.
Two members of the group, Ali Dahir Osman and Abubakar Yusuf, are believed to be Dutch and Danish passports holders, respectively.
According to the report, a close associate and collaborator of Salawat’s, upon arrival in Nairobi, Salawat arranged for the three to be accommodated in Eastleigh and subsequently assisted to travel overland to Somalia via North-Eastern Province.
However, the individuals who sought Salawat’s assistance to travel to Somalia for ‘holiday’ and would return have never done so to date.
“For example, the Monitoring Group interviewed a Somali male who travelled from Somalia to Nairobi in late 2009 in order to discuss with Salawat the terms for being smuggled into Europe.
During their meeting, it was agreed that the client would deposit Sh1.7 million into an escrow account held by a ‘small business’ with Quran money for eventual transfer to Salawat when the source arrived in Europe,” the report said.
On 14 December 2009, the report said Salawat’s client, travelling on a Swedish passport in the name of Mohamed Yassin Gaal, left Nairobi for the Netherlands.
Upon arrival in Amsterdam the following day, he was detained by the Dutch authorities on grounds that his assumed identity was on a security watch.
He was subsequently deported via Istanbul to Nairobi.
Upon interrogation, Gaal who is a member of Al-Shabaab denied any connection with Salawat or the extremist group.
But the report says Gaal is a member of Al-Shabaab and was at one point active in the Lower Juba region of Somalia under the command of Hassan Abdillahi Hirsi alias Turki.
But the report says Gaal is a member of Al-Shabaab and was at one point active in the Lower Juba region of Somalia under the command of Hassan Abdillahi Hirsi alias Turki.
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