Two arrested with grenades at lodge

Police have arrested two men and found grenades the suspects had planned to detonate at undisclosed locations in Nairobi.

The two men aged between 20 and 25 years were arrested in Kitale at around 7.30pm on Saturday as they prepared to travel to the city. A third man escaped.

Rift Valley police boss John Mbijiwe said detectives had been trailing them for some time and they pounced on the two as they prepared to travel to Nairobi.

He said the two Kenyans had been recruited into Al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based terrorist group.

“We are interrogating them to know the source of the grenades. We know they intended to detonate them at crowded places like churches and bus stops,” Mr Mbijiwe added.

The suspects were driven to Nairobi under tight security and handed over to the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit.

The arrest comes barely 48 hours after Nairobi police boss Anthony Kibuchi disclosed that Al-Shabaab had planned to cause “massive destruction” in Nairobi over the holy month of Ramadhan, which started last Saturday.

In Kitale, the two had checked into a room in a guest house, where officers from the local police station arrested them.

A third man escaped, said area police commander Lucas Ogara.

“We arrested the two after we were tipped by concerned members of the public,” said Mr Ogara.

Police said one of the suspects lives in West Pokot County and the other in Rachuonyo, Nyanza.

Powerful devices

Mr Ogara said the Russian-made grenades could have caused massive damage if the suspects had managed to sneak them to Nairobi.

“These grenades are capable of bringing down a big building,” he said.

A manager at the guest house, Mr Protus Ochieng, described the suspects as “suspicious” and showed some “weird behaviour.”

“They kept on moving in and out of the room in a suspicious manner,” he recalled.