Kenya arrests 3 women due to ISIL links

Three women on Monday were brought before a court in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa after having been arrested by security forces at the border with Somalia for allegedly planning to travel to Syria.

“From our interrogation, the Tanzanians confessed to officers in Mombasa that their intention was to enter Somalia and meet a certain… Al-Shabaab member who backs ISIL” Nelson Marwa, Mombasa County Commissioner, told  before the three were arraigned.

The three young women, one Tanzanian and two Kenyans, were arrested on Saturday near El Wak, a Kenyan town less than 10km from the Somali border.

One of the Kenyans is a student at the private Mount Kenya University, while the other is a student at Burhaniya College in Mombasa.

Both are aged 19 and hail from the coastal town of Malindi.

The 21-year-old Tanzanian girl, meanwhile, is a medical student at Sudan’s University of Khartoum.

According to Marwa, the alleged Al-Shabaab member – who had been communicating for months with the women through social media – was to arrange for their travel to either Syria or Iraq.

The ISIL now controls large areas of both Iraq and Syria. It also commands the allegiance of smaller militant groups in several Arab and African countries.

In addition to militants from different countries, ISIL has also attracted several, mostly western, women and girls.

Some of them end up marrying ISIL members to become known as “Jihadi brides.”

A Kenyan security official told that another three Kenyan female university students – who had intended to sneak into Somalia – had been arrested at the border on Friday.

According to the authorities, the trio had planned to meet a contact in Somalia to help them travel on to ISIL-controlled territory in Syria or Iraq.

It is the first time Kenyan women have been arrested with the alleged intention of joining a jihadi group abroad.

World Bulletin / News Desk