The United States has identified three suspected Al Shabaab terrorists.

However, the US embassy in Kenya says the three; Mahad Karate, Jehad Mostafa, and Ahmed Diriye are still at large.

In a statement made on Monday, November 14 afternoon in Nairobi, the US has also offered a Sh 1.2 billion [$10 million] reward to persons with information on their whereabouts. 

““To our Kenyan and regional partners, the United States is offering reward money for information that will lead to the identification and disruption of Al-Shabaab’s revenue sources and funding. This is huge information on Al-Shabaab’s exploitation of local natural resources and financial donors and facilitators,” an official at the US embassy said.

According to the US, the trio who are leaders of the terror group are responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Kenya, Somalia, and other neighbouring countries.

The attacks have led to the loss of lives in hundreds. 

“We know that Al-Shabaab receives money through a plethora of illegal activities that go on around the world to fund their operations and to fund the killing of hundreds of civilians every year,” he added.

The informants are urged to submit the information through Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp to +254-71-87-12-366 (Kenya) or +252-68-43-43-308 (Somalia).  

The US embassy in Kenya has also promised to protect individuals who give information that will lead to the arrest of the three suspects. By Winfrey Owino, The Standard

ETHIOPIAN and Tigrayan leaders agreed to allow humanitarian access to the warzone and form a joint disarmament committee on Saturday, extending a truce agreed last week.

The commanders, who since Monday have been meeting in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, signed an agreement mandating disengagement from all forms of military activities.

Both parties have agreed to protect civilians and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the region of more than five million people.

The agreement states that disarmament will be “done concurrently with the withdrawal of foreign and non-[Ethiopian military] forces” from Tigray. Since the beginning of the war in November 2020, troops from Ethiopia’s northern neighbour Eritrea have assisted the government in fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the rulers of the Ethiopian region.

Ethiopia’s lead negotiator Redwan Hussein said the talks had established a conducive environment for ongoing peace negotiations and suggested that the next round would “most likely” be conducted in Tigray itself followed by a meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

Both sides blame each other for the outbreak of the civil war, which followed Tigray’s decision to proceed with elections the central government had ordered postponed because of the Covid pandemic.

The brutal fighting in Tigray, which spilled into Amhara and Afar regions as Tigrayan forces tried to break the military blockade of their region, reignited in August after months of lull that allowed thousands of lorries carrying humanitarian aid into Tigray.

The TPLF’s decades-long dominance of Ethiopia’s government, which ended with the election of Abiy Ahmed as president in 2018, means it is regarded with suspicion by central authorities who have accused it of seeking to re-establish national power.

A study by Belgium’s Ghent University last month found the war to be the largest ongoing conflict in the world involving up to half a million troops and a death toll estimated at between 300-600,000, including hundreds of thousands of civilians. Both sides have been accused of war crimes.

Phone and internet connections to Tigray are still down, and foreign journalists and human rights researchers remain barred, complicating efforts to verify reports of ongoing violence in the region.  Morning Star