Kenyan police on Tuesday foiled a terror plot in northern town of Garissa after a neatly wrapped briefcase that had a bomb in it was discovered and safely detonated.Regional police commander, Philip Tuimur said the bomb believed to be an Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs) was discovered by a taxi driver at the wee hours of the Tuesday.Tuimur said the device was set at the Gamadid road Junction where many commuters gather to take transport from taxi operators. “We managed to detonate the device safely. There is no cause for alarm now,” he said.According to Charles Dulu Munyoki, the taxi driver who identified the brief case carrying the dangerous explosive, raised an alarm to his colleagues as the package looked suspicious.“It was around 05:00hrs when I spotted a suspicious brief case at a road junction in Garissa town. I then told my colleagues where one of us rang a Criminal Investigations Department (CID) officer who informed his seniors who later sent bomb experts who helped in detonating the bomb,” Munyoki said.Police had a rough time in controlling curious members of the public who wanted to have sight of the bag that had the dangerous explosive.The mission which took almost three hours where bomb experts backed up by Administration Police and Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) involved metal detector and bags surrounding the brief case that carried the bomb.The incident has caused panic among the local residents and taxi operators who have expressed fears of possibility of terror attacks in the restive region which is close to Somalia where Al- Shabaab have faced a major onslaught from KDF and allied forces.Residents in the northern Kenya are blaming the renewed attacks in the region on the Somali insurgents who are now fleeing towards Gedo region in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya.In the past few months attacks involving planting of Improvised Explosive Devices on main roads in the northern Kenya targeting Kenya security forces have been rising.A police officer who did not want to be identified said the bag was too heavy and could wreck havoc two hundred meters away.The officer added that the bag was a bait to attract passers- by so as they could pick it and immediately explode.“This is somebody who wanted to harm unsuspecting wananchi (citizens). Going by the strategic position he had placed the explosive, he wanted somebody to go and open the bag before it could explode since it had already been set,” the police officer said.A loud bang was heard one kilometre away after the detonation as a big hole was dug by the impact as pieces of the ill fated brief case which saw several other debris littering the place.Divisional deputy police commander, Chemonges Ndiema however, refused to link it to the Al-Shabaab militia group only saying that investigations would be carried into the matter.He however said that the incident “might have been carried out by a group of frustrated boys.” He did not specify the boys he was referring.But local residents say the incident might have been planted there by Al-Shabaab sympathizers in Kenya who are not happy with the military operation to get rid off the insurgents blamed for bomb and grenade attacks in Kenya including abduction of foreigners.The police boss said that bomb experts will analyze the debris in order to identify the source of the explosives which would have been used to kill hundreds of innocent people.Garissa town has of late witnessed a spate of grenade and gun attack to police and innocent members of the public over the past two weeks which are seen as retaliatory attacks from the embattled Al-Shabaab militias in Somalia since the capture of the port cit of Kismayo.More than 20 security officers and scores of civilians have been killed, property worth millions were destroyed in Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Nairobi and Mombasa since the Kenyan soldiers entered Somalia in bid to forestall dangers facing from threats of Al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamist Group, Al-Shabaab.Kenya says the deployment of her troops in the southern regions have so far helped to prevent the movement of explosives to the strategic towns of Husingo and Badhade, the conduit points for the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the counterfeit electronics and contraband sugar smuggling across the region.Military officials said these regions are crucial to the stabilization of Kenya’s coastal and northeastern provinces, which have been targeted by attackers preying on soft civilian targets.
