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Kenya: Anti-terrorism minister George Saitoti killed in copter crash
As internal security minister, Saitoti controlled the state’s top investigative arms, the National Security Intelligence Service and the Criminal Investigations Department.
Kenya sent thousands of troops into southern Somalia in October last year to fight the Al-Shabaab and protect its border. It has since been joined by other regional powers in a bid to rout the Islamist group from their strongholds in the south and centre of the country.
It was Saitoti who made the first public announcement of the invasion, a full two days after Kenyan troops crossed the border.
Several people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in border areas, and a bomb in a Nairobi shopping centre last month wounded 38 people. Saitoti declared recently that the government would not be cowed by “terrorists”.
Saitoti had announced that he was standing as a candidate to succeed Kibaki in the 2013 presidential election.
A former finance minister, he was vice-president in the administration of Daniel Arap Moi from 1989-1997 and again from 1999-2002.
Copyright 2012 AFP.
