A muslim medical student in a practical class
A surge in the number of students being arrested on
suspicion of joining the Islamic State (ISIS) has triggered alarm on the
group's recruitment efforts Kenya. The Commission of University Education says
at least 44 university students have abandoned their studies to join terror
groups including ISIS in Libya and Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
Concern is especially growing over the number of students
studying medicine who have been detained on suspicion of belonging to terror
groups. On Wednesday, the US government froze the assets of Somali resident
Abduqadir Mumin, who it identified as the leader of the Islamic State in East
Africa and warned its citizens against conducting any business with him.
"Mumin, a former
Al-Shabaab recruiter and spokesman, pledged allegiance to ISIS, along with
around 20 of his followers, in October 2015. And has set up a base in Puntland,
Somalia," said the US State Department.
Unlike Shabaab, which recruits directly, ISIS increases its
membership through the creation of franchises or raiding other terror groups
for members by convincing their terror cells to join them. It is believed
Mumin's cell - which calls itself "Jahba East Africa" - is behind the
massive recruitment drive for the Islamic State in East Africa.
Al-Shabaab, which is believed to have been weakened
significantly due to wrangles among its leadership and a sustained campaign
against it by the African Union mission (Amisom), pledges its allegiance to
Al-Qaeda, a fierce rival to the Islamic State. Apart from the El-Adde base
attack in which dozens of Kenya Defence Forces soldiers were killed after
Shabaab militants raided their camp in Somalia, the militant group, which has
killed hundreds of Kenyans in recent years, has not staged a major attack in
Kenya this year.
The number of terror attacks on Kenyan soil dropped to 46
last year, 49 per cent lower than the figure for 2015 and 2014, the lowest
since 2001, according to statistics collected by the Armed Conflict Location
and Event Data Project, which is run by the University of Sussex in the UK. The
university, which compiles data drawn from media reports on terrorist attacks
around the world, says Kenya has had 13 militant attacks carried out within its
territory so far since January 2016, leading to 34 causalities. Last year saw
94 attacks while 2013 and 2012 had 48 and 52 attacks respectively.
Security experts say while ISIS has no reason to attack
Kenya, the reported recruitment drive is a cause for worry.
"We have not
reached a level where we have an active ISIS threat in Kenya because what we
have is people willing to join the terror group or sympathetic to them,"
Major (Rtd) Bashir Abdullahi, a security analyst says.
But more worrying is the fact that those being arrested on
suspicion of being members of the terror group are in the medical field.
Few weeks ago two interns at the Malindi Hospital, Mohamed
Shukri and Abdulrazak Abdinuur, were arrested by officers from the Anti-Terror
Police Unit (ATPU) on suspicion of having links to the group. Both are studying
medicine at Saratov State Medical University in Russia courtesy of a
scholarship from the Russian government.
Last year (2015), four other medical interns at the same
hospital were arrested for allegedly planning to join ISIS. The four Maryam
Said, Khadija Abdulkadir, Ummul Khayr (all Kenyans) and Sadir Abdalla from
Tanzania were presented to court and their cases are ongoing.
In February this year, ATPU arrested Hassanaen Ahmed, a
University of Nairobi biochemistry student as he was leaving the country to
travel to Libya reportedly to join ISIS. And in May, Gloria Kavaya, a
microbiology student at the Kenyatta University was arrested after she
disappeared from school, changed her name and embarked on plans to travel to
Syria, according to a government prosecuter.
Just in the same month (May), police said they had foiled a
large scale biological attack using anthrax that would have caused a damage similar
scale to the Westgate mall attack. Mohamed Abdi, a medical intern at the Wote
Hospital in Makueni and a student at the Kampala International University were
among three suspects arrested for this foiled biological attack as alleged by
the police. His wife Nuseiba Mohammed - whom police identified as an accomplice
and student at Kampala International University - ware arrested a few days
later by Ugandan Police as she tried to flee the country together with another
Kenyan female student Fatuma Hanshi, according to the police source. The two
were handed over to the Kenyan government for prosecution. Both the two, Ahmed
Hish and Farah Dagane, medical interns
at Kitale hospital, have a Sh2 million bounty on them.
"The same network
has been facilitating Kenyan youth to secretly leave the country to join terror
groups in Libya and Syria," said Kenya’s police Inspector General
Joseph Boinnet.
So, what is it that is making practitioners in the medical
field get attracted to terror groups?
The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (KMPDB),
which regulates the practice of medicine in the country, has refused to be
drawn into the debate saying it is not part of their mandate.
"This is something we don't want to get involved in
because it is not a medical malpractice, it's a security issue that the
security forces must deal with" says Daniel Yumbya KMPDB chief executive.
Medicine is regarded as a prestigious career attracting the
brightest students in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.
Psychologist Philomena Ndambuki from the Kenyatta University
says like all terror recruits, those joining ISIS are driven by a desire to belong
to something, an idea ISIS uses to draw disillusioned youth around the world
into its ranks through social media.
"Doctors are
driven by altruism and a desire to help others, which terrorist recruiters can
exploit by promising potential recruits they will be serving a bigger
cause," says Dr Ndambuki.
A widely circulated tweet by the Islamic State's British
recruiter Omar Hussain says: "The
wage here may not be as much as you get in the West, but do we live for this
life or do we live for the hereafter? Is money more important than the life of
your Muslim brother?"
It is such messages that Dr Ndambuki believes turn bright
minds into terrorists through a process she calls warped idealism. But it is not just ISIS, the leader of Al-Qaeda,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over from Osama Bin Laden (who was an engineer) is
an eye surgeon from Egypt., while Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the ISIS,
has a PhD in Islamic studies. And since June last year, ISIS has been running a
campaign calling for foreign professionals like health workers and engineers
through blogs, social media, magazines and online videos to join its ranks as
locals continue to flee areas where it controls.
