Tens of the multi-agency team were sent to a village in Lamu County after about 100 gunmen
raided there, lectured locals, and offered them free dates.
The move
by the gang has raised tension in the village amid fears they could come back
for a deadly attack.
Police
said the gang believed to be members of the terror group al Shabaab went to Mangai
village, which is part of the larger Boni Forest and assembled the villagers on
Saturday evening before embarking on their mission.
The
area is near the porous Kenya-Somalia border.
Witnesses said the gunmen
introduced themselves as members of the outlawed group.
They then started to radicalise
locals and spread their extremist ideology, witnesses said.
There were no casualties in the
invasion, officials said.
The militants distributed dates
(fruits) to villagers before they left.
A joint security team was Sunday
dispatched to the area to flush out the militants.
The police said Monday the new
operation had covered a huge area in effort to drive out the gang which was
hooded during the raid.
The team has talked to victims as part of the operation.
The gunmen entered Mangai
village, which is about 80 kilometers southwest of the Mangai Border Patrol
Unit camp, police said adding the gang knew the location of security agents.
They had earlier probed the
camp before splitting into two groups, police said.
One group remained behind to
watch the camp as the other entered the village for their mission.
The gunmen were mostly armed
with AK47 rifles and hooded, witnesses said.
They stormed the village and
lectured locals for about 30 minutes about the importance of respecting Islam
and its teachings.
They also the locals not to
cooperate with the government and before leaving, they warned locals not to
tell the police or the military about their presence in the village.
Police have called on locals to
share information about the gunmen with security agencies so as to help flush
out the militants.
Lamu has for years been the
scene of terrorist attacks targeting both locals and security officers.
The worst attack happened in
Mpeketoni and Kibaoni on the night of June 15, 2014, when more than 90 people
were killed.
The
area is under a special operation code named Operation Linda Boni to flush out
the terrorists there.
Masalani,
Sangailu, Ijara and Handaro are all within the Linda Boni Operation zone.
The
multi-agency operation seeks to flush out al-Shabaab militants from Boni
Forest.
The
government has been developing the area as part of efforts to address the
menace.
A port,
more roads, hospitals, and schools have been developed as part of efforts to
open the area to development and address terror-related attacks.
Some locals also claim the area has been neglected over the years hence the frequent attacks, which are at times facilitated by villagers.
