Terrorist rented in Nairobi

Nairobi. The two car stickers were distinctive – and security agents now say they were being used by the terrorist sleeper cell to identify their vehicles.
One of the stickers was of a man wearing an M50 gas mask – an above-the-neck respirator used for protection against biological and chemical agents. The other was a car decal of a man, his head bent and wearing a black headscarf.
“These were their identification stickers,” a senior security source privy to the investigations told Daily Nation at the scene.
While the CCTV footage showed four terrorists entering the complex, police sources say they killed six of them – meaning some could have entered the building in advance.
At House No. E9 in Muchatha’s Guango estate in Kiambu, one of the terrorists, a clean-shaven man with a goatee, had rented a bungalow, where he lived with a girl-friend.
He also loved cats too, and would occasionally buy meat for them. His tinted five-seater Toyota Ractis, KCN 340E, – which was unable to go through the DusitD2 barrier, was by yesterday still at the road leading to the complex after crashing into a drainage ditch beside the first security barrier.
Residents knew him as Ali Salim – a man who spoke fluent Swahili and had a good rapport with the locals – in this gated community, although he always hid his face with a cap.
Rent for these four-bedroom houses could reach KSh50,000 (Shs1.8m) a month and for the last 10 months, some of the planning for the DusitD2 complex attack was carried out here.
A few weeks to the attack, the Toyota Ractis would be driven to Chiromo and parked by the roadside.
A man who sells second-hand clothes at the junction of Chiromo Road and 14 Riverside Drive claimed he had noticed the car several times.
“They would normally park by the roadside and no one leaves the car. And when they do, one would go and come back with coffee from the restaurant,” the hawker was quoted saying.
Two days before the attack, a waiter at the restaurant told the press that one of the terrorists, who was noticeable because of a “big scar” on his hand, went to the restaurant and ordered coffee.
Security sources say the terrorists’ car had arrived at the Chiromo/14 Riverside Drive junction at about 2.30 pm and was parked at the entrance for 30 minutes.
Adjacent were maize roasters who target the University of Nairobi students whose Chiromo hostels are adjacent to DusitD2.
For the 30 minutes, the occupants never left the tinted car and then drove towards the drop arm barrier on Riverside Drive.
It is not clear how the Toyota Ractis ended up in the storm water ditch adjacent to the barrier but initial information was that some Australian forces, some 100 metres from the scene, rushed there first and engaged the terrorists.
By then, the terrorists had thrown a hand grenade towards some escaping guards and it landed at the left side of a parked Toyota Yaris, KBL 471N, the flying shrapnel deflating its tyre but causing little damage.
“They only had grenades but we have not seen any VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device),” a security official said.
As the alarms set off at about 2.30pm, the four terrorists shot their way into the compound past the second barrier where they hurled more grenades towards a taxi bay setting aflame three cars. By this time, security from the adjacent Australian embassy had responded – at first thinking it was a bank robbery at the I&M Bank which is located in the complex.
The CCTV footage captures the terrorists trying to gain entrance into the offices – but are frustrated by the locked steel doors and they head towards the restaurant where one of them blew himself up at the Secret Garden Restaurant killing several people.
“Why are you killing our brothers and sisters in Somalia?” – one of them is alleged to have asked before shooting.
Within minutes, DusitD2 was swarming with security which was swiftly mobilised and led by the General Service Unit commandant Douglas Kanja, the Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti and the flying squad commander Musa Yego.
The game-changer was the Recce squad, a special unit that stormed the building pushing the terrorists to the upper floors – where they had been frustrated by the steel doors and bullet-proof windows on some of the offices.
Unknown to the terrorists, Ducit is akin to a fortless where doors are only opened using passwords.
Security officers say these barriers saved many of the more than 700 Dusit complex workers – who were later rescued.
Initial footage showed some of the terrorists trying to shoot some of the glass doors –to no avail before go down to the restaurant.
See related stories on page 27, 28 &29