NAIROBI: A Kenyan court yesterday sentenced two Iranian nationals convicted of plotting attacks against Western targets to life in prison.
Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi were arrested in June 2012 and led officials to a 15-kilogram stash of the explosive RDX. Officials in Kenya say the two suspects may have been planning attacks on Israeli, American, British or Saudi Arabian interests in Kenya.
Magistrate Kaire Waweru Kiare sentenced the two to life in prison for committing acts intended to cause grievous harm. The two were sentenced to additional prison sentences of 15 and 10 years on lesser charges. The sentences will be served simultaneously, Kiare said.
Kiare said an expert for the prosecution, who testified that the cache of RDX explosives was capable of bringing down a tall building, influenced his sentencing decision. “I shudder to imagine the amount of life and property that would have been forever destroyed,” the magistrate said.
“Even as I hear the accused persons mitigating and crying for mercy, there is yet a louder cry by the blood of the previous victims of terrorist attacks, the orphan, the widow and widower due to such heinous attacks. All are crying for justice,” Kiare said.
Mohammad and Mousavi displayed little outward reaction when the sentences were read. Mohammad smiled before media cameras.
Defense lawyers said they would appeal.
“The decision is outrageous. It’s wrong. It’s illegal. It’s a nullity. The magistrate has totally misconceived the law,” David Kirimi who represented Mousavi, said.
Defense lawyer Wandugi Karathe, representing Mohammad, earlier urged the magistrate to give his client a non-custodial sentence, arguing that Mohammad “is remorseful of the circumstances that brought him to the court” and is a sole breadwinner for six children in Iran.
Karathe also argued that nobody had been harmed as a result of what his client was being accused of and asked the magistrate to consider Mohammad’s health. He said Mohammad had undergone heart surgery and needs constant medication and that prison conditions will make his health “life threatening.” Mohammad’s wife, Fatma Rhahimid, said through a translator that both men are innocent and their trial was heavily influenced by “extrajudicial forces.” Iranian agents are suspected in attacks or thwarted attacks around the globe in recent years, including in Azerbaijan, Thailand and India. Most of the plots had connections to Israeli targets. Kenyan anti-terror officials said the two Iranians are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, an elite and secretive unit.
Police Sgt. Erick Opagal, an investigator with Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, asked the court last year to deny bail to the two because more than 85 kg of the explosives that authorities say was shipped into Kenya has not been found.
The two Iranians arrived in Kenya on June 12, 2012, and traveled to coastal city of Mombasa on the same day to receive the explosives, Opagal’s affidavit said. They traveled back to Nairobi after receiving the explosives from an accomplice who is still at large, it said.
Several resorts on Kenya’s coast are Israeli-owned. Militants in 2002 bombed an Israeli-owned luxury hotel near Mombasa, killing 13 people. The militants also tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner at the same time. An Al-Qaeda operative was linked to those attacks.
Investigators believe that if the Iranian plot had been successful, suspicion would have naturally fallen not on Iran but instead on the Somali militant group Al-Shabab. Al-Shabab has threatened to bring Nairobi’s skyscrapers to the ground following Kenya’s military push into Somalia in October 2011.
Kenyan court sentences 2 Iranians to life
Kenyan court sentences 2 Iranians to life
Afghanistan launches retaliatory attacks on Pakistan as tensions escalate
- At least 66 Afghans have been killed by Pakistan’s strikes, Afghan authorities say
- Afghanistan has called for dialogue while Pakistan ruled out any talks with Kabul
KABUL: Afghanistan has launched new attacks on Pakistan’s military bases, the Afghan defense ministry said on Saturday, as cross-border clashes escalated between the neighbors after months of tension.
The latest flare-up erupted after Pakistan’s airstrikes on Afghan territory last weekend triggered a retaliatory offensive from Afghanistan along the border on Thursday.
The two countries have engaged in tit-for-tat attacks since, marking the most serious development in ongoing tensions between the two countries, which agreed to a ceasefire last October following a week of deadly clashes.
Afghanistan’s Air Force has “once again launched airstrikes on Pakistani military bases” in Miranshah and Spinwam, the Afghan Ministry of National Defense said on X on Saturday, claiming that the strikes caused “severe damage and heavy casualties.”
“These successful operations were conducted in response to repeated aerial aggressions by the Pakistani military regime,” the ministry said.
Afghan forces also launched similar strikes against military targets in Islamabad and Abbottabad on Friday, which the ministry said was in retaliation of aerial attacks by Pakistani forces in Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia.
At least 66 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Pakistani strikes, with another 59 others wounded, according to Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesman for the Afghan government.
Pakistan has maintained that it is targeting only military targets to avoid any civilian casualties, in compliance with international law.
Pakistani officials said its forces have killed more than 330 Afghan fighters and targeted 37 military locations across Afghanistan.
Zabihullah Mujahid, chief spokesperson for the Afghan government, earlier called for talks to resolve the crisis.
“We have always emphasized peaceful resolution, and now too we want the issue to be resolved through dialogue,” he said on Friday.
However, Pakistan has ruled out any talks with Kabul.
“There won’t be any talks, there is nothing to talk about. There’s no negotiation. Terrorism from Afghanistan has to end,” Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesperson for Pakistan’s prime minister, said on Friday.
Pakistan is accusing the Afghan Taliban of sheltering fighters from the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and allowing them to stage cross-border attacks — a charge Afghanistan denies, saying it does not allow its territory to be used against other countries.
As international calls for mediation grow amid the escalating hostility, Afghans across the country are growing fearful of the violence.
“Everyone heard the jets. This is the first time since the withdrawal of US invaders that we have heard such a horrible noise and news of damage. It is not good for us,” said Kandahar resident Shahid Zamari.
“We had forgotten the US war and its bad impact on us, on our families, on our children. And now this has come upon us again — by Pakistan, and in the holy month of Ramadan.”
When the strikes hit Kabul at around 1:30 a.m. on Friday, Saleema Wardak moved quickly to wake up her six children and escape outside, assuming the strong jolt that shook her house was an earthquake.
“While standing in the yard, my husband told me it was not an earthquake but an explosion. Then we heard the crazy sounds of planes, and shooting from the mountains against the planes,” she told Arab News.
“We hid inside, worried another bomb would fall on us. People say Pakistan is targeting civilians on purpose to increase pressure on the Taliban. So we hid … The world is unjust … They do not value the blood of the poor.”
For Sabawoon, a 23-year-old student from eastern Kunar province’s Asadabad city, the coming days are filled with uncertainties.
“What to do? Where to go? We have to stay and find our way to survive,” he told Arab News. “God willing, nothing bad will happen to us. If they are bombing us, what can we do?”
