Kenyan police arrest 2 suspects, seize grenades

KITALE, KENYA - Kenyan police are holding two youthful terror suspects on Sunday for interrogation after seizing two grenades from a Guest house in Kitale town, Western Kenya.

Divisional Criminal Investigation officer Patrick Wachira said they have commenced investigations to establish the origin of the weapons.

"It is true we have arrested two youthful Kenyans and recovered two grenades and some powders we suspect are to be assembled for making explosives," Wachira told journalists in Kitale on Sunday.

The officer said the suspects were arrested from the Kitale Guest Hotel where they had been booked on Saturday.

"We acted on a tip-off from a police informer and raided the hotel within Kitale town and managed to arrest the 2 suspects aged between 25 and 30," Wachira said.

According to the Hotel Manager Protus Ochieng, one of the men arrived and was allocated a room but said he would rest in the room for few hours before he could leave for Nairobi.

"He arrived and asked for a room to stay for the whole of Saturday because he was expected to travel to Nairobi and the room attendant allocated him one of the rooms," said Ochieng.

The manager said the man left the room after an hour before he returned accompanied by another man.

"They then locked themselves in the room for several hours before the second man started to make suspicious movements, going out and coming back," said the manager.

"I became suspicious when a third man arrived and went straight to the room and at 5 p.m. local time (1400 GMT), I walked to the room and demanded that the men check out because the stipulated time for stay had elapsed," Ochieng said.

He said after he left to consult what to do, one of the men came out but before he could walk out of the gate, he was accosted by heavily armed police officers who had arrived in two vehicles.

"The officers pulled the man back to the room and started searching the room before they discovered the two grenades between the mattress and the bed. A bag containing powder was found under the bed," the Hotel official told reporters at the premises.    

Wachira said they recovered powder had been dispatched to Nairobi for chemical analysis while bomb experts have been invited to probe the grenades.

"We have called in experts to examine the grenades and the powder has been dispatched to Nairobi for analysis," he said.

The suspects were under interrogation and would be arraigned in court once investigations are complete, he said. Sources said that the weapons are suspected to have been smuggled from a neighboring country.

The country has been subjected to successive explosives attacks by Al-Shabaab operatives in the country following the onslaught by Kenyan soldiers on the Al-Shabaab in Somalia after the militia staged a series of attacks along the Kenyan coast.

The recent insecurity incidents come amid heightened security in Nairobi after Somali insurgents threatened reprisal attacks in Kenya if her soldiers who launched cross border incursions in October last year do not leave the Horn of Africa nation.