Kenya lists al-Shabaab as organised crime gang

Kenya has listed the Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab as one of the 46 groups engaged in organized crime in the East African country. In a report launched in Nairobi on Friday, Kenyan Attorney General Githui Muigai described terrorism as a new form of organized crime in the country. "Organized criminal gangs are evolving in Kenya in unprecedented ways. The increasing incidents of the terror they unleash among citizens where lives are lost, property destroyed and injuries inflicted is very worrisome," Muigai said during the launch of the report by the National Crime Research Center (NCRC) on Organized Criminal Gangs in Kenya. The government's top legal advisor said there was a real and urgent need for law enforcement agencies to apply a collective approach to tackle the threat. The Somalia-based Jihadist group operates along the common border of the two countries and frequently makes incursions into Kenyan soil for kidnapping and other criminal activities. The group has a cell in Nairobi where they occasionally engage in bombing. The secessionist Mombasa Republican Council was also listed as a criminal gang in Kenya. The group, which is active in Kenya's coastal region, has been agitating to break away.