UN Says Kenyan Army Attacked Telecom Towers In Somalia

A new report by United Nations special investigators says Kenya’s military was responsible for five attacks on telecommunications masts in neighbouring Somalia, including strikes that killed two civilians, AFP reported. The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) attacked communications towers in Somalia between 2017 and 2019, in a possible effort to stop al-Shabaab using mobile signals to detonate bombs, an expert panel reported in its latest update to the UN Security Council.

The panel, which monitors sanctions on Somalia, said it received reports of KDF attacks on twelve towers operated by Hormuud Telecom, a Mogadishu-based provider, since 2017, almost all in Gedo along Kenya’s northernmost border with Somalia. A security guard and his relative died in July 2018 in an alleged KDF shelling on a Hormuud station, the report added. The KDF denied any involvement in the attacks during a meeting with the UN experts, the report noted.

The report did not give details of how all of the attacks were carried out, although it referred to shelling in one incident and to at least one air strike. Hormuud Telecom has alleged at least twelve attacks. In August, it said that one assault had not only destroyed a mast but also two power generators, batteries and a building.―Telecompaper