High alert a year after Osama gunned down

Security agencies around the world were on Tuesday on high alert on the first anniversary of the killing of the mastermind of Al Qaeda terror group, Osama bin Laden. n Kenya, security services are at an unprecedented state of alert amid reports that Al Qaeda linked Somali terrorist group, Al-Shabaab, is planning an attack at strategic installations. A senior official of the Anti-Terrorist Police Unit said they had received intelligence reports that Al-Shabaab terrorists are planning an attack, but adequate security measures are in place to deal with the threat. Last week, the US Embassy in Nairobi warned that terrorists were planning strikes against hotels and government buildings. The embassy said it had credible information that the attacks were in the final planning stage, but said the timing was not known. Officials in Britain and the United States have repeatedly warned in recent months of expected attacks in Kenya, which suffered from a spate of abductions of aid workers and tourists late last year. Grenade attack On Sunday, a one person was killed and 16 others injured after a grenade attack targeting God’s House of Miracles International Church in Nairobi’s Ngara area. (READ: One dead, ten injured in Nairobi grenade Police are still investigating the incident. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, although police are looking for a young man who was in the congregation and is said to have thrown the grenade. Kenya has been hit by a series of grenade attacks, including two in the coastal town of Mombasa that killed one and injured 33. Al-Shabaab has in the past claimed responsibility for some of the terrorist attacks in Kenya, saying they were in retaliation to Kenya’s decision to send troops to the war torn Horn of Africa country. On Tuesday, it emerged that churches, hotels and shopping malls are among social places being provided with blanket security in an effort to prevent a terrorist attack. Security officials said a detailed operational plan has been launched to guide officers on terrorism prevention and detection, and how to act in case of an emergency. New measures have resulted in the security of selected ordinary public places being upgraded, albeit temporarily, to the status known in security parlance as “vital installations”. Normally, vital installations would, among others, include airports, military barracks, police stations and foreign missions in Kenya. In the US, federal authorities have increased their vigilance at selected airports abroad by sending more security officers to monitor commercial flights into the United States, according to two government officials. Among the concerns is that terrorists will ingest explosives and try to detonate them on a commercial flight, the officials said. “For a long time there has been a concern of attacks on aircraft surrounding the anniversary of bin Laden’s death,” one official said.

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