A Standard Eight pupil is being held by anti-terrorism police in Nairobi after he was rescued from an Al-Shabaab cell that is recruiting students, highlighting a development that has shocked the security system.
The 14-year-old is registered to sit the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination next month but, unknown to his family and teachers, the boy was recruited by Al-Shabaab agents operating in one of Nairobi’s most expensive suburbs where he was offered radical religious teachings and training on how to use guns.
The militants planned to sneak the boy, who is from a Christian family, into Somalia this December to join fighting units of the Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group.
He was an easy prey because the Shabaab cell set up camp in a house next to his home at a gated community in the upmarket estate, where the lowest monthly rent is Sh75,000.
Every day after school and during the weekends, he joined a group of about 20 other teenagers in the house where they were radicalised.
According to the boy, he was handed a pistol and showed how to use it, only that the lessons never involved firing live ammunition lest the gunshots stirred up the quiet neighbourhood.
Much to the astonishment of his mother, and officers who interrogated him, the boy gave a list of 19 other youngsters who are waiting to be smuggled into Somalia in December.