Three students who were arrested in Isiolo last week were on a mission to join terror group al-Shabaab in Somalia, police have said.
Isiolo Police Commander Charles Ontita on Thursday said the students, who are from a secondary school in Eastleigh in Nairobi, had been heading to Somalia through Wajir for recruitment into Al-Shabaab.
The three, aged 17, 16 and 15, were arrested by the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) in a bus in Ngaremara along the Isiolo-Marsabit highway.
They claimed to have been heading to a funeral in Moyale.
One is from Garissa and another from Wajir. The third one’s home is yet to be known.
On Wednesday, an Isiolo court granted police 30 days to complete investigations into the possible terror links.
Parents of two suspects reported to the offices of the ATPU and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations office in Isiolo where the suspects were released pending investigations.
The suspects will be required to report to the offices every two weeks for investigations.
“We took them to court after arrest where they were charged with being in the country illegally, but later upon investigations, we realized that they were terror suspects. We further asked the court to grant us more time to investigate terror links,” Mr Ontita said.
The Moyale bus that the suspects had been travelling in had earlier been impounded, but was later released to its owner.
Police are currently questioning several people believed to be recruiting young people in Isiolo to al-Shabaab.
