Security Heightened as US, Kenya Mark Four Years Since Manda Bay Terror Attack

Security officials heightened operations Friday as Kenya marked four years after a deadly terror attack on a military base in Lamu County.

The attack took place on January 5, 2020 leaving three Americans – one U.S. military service member and two contractors – killed.

Officials aware of the situation said they had increased surveillance and vigilance amid fears of similar attack.

This is due to among others ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

“They could be planning an attack to mark the day and also in protest against the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” said an official aware of the operations.

The official said most threats had been “cleared or eliminated” but their alertness was still high in case.

The Manda Bay Airfield is part of a Kenyan Defense Forces military base used by U.S. armed forces to provide training and counterterrorism support to East African partners, respond to crises and protect U.S. interests in the region, according to the State Department.

The attack also wounded three people and destroyed six aircrafts as at least six insurgents were killed.

About 20 to 30 al-Shabab militants were able to slip through a forest and fired rocket-propelled grenades onto the Magogoni Airfield at the base.

In the first two minutes, the RPGs killed Army Specialist Henry Mayfield in a truck and killed two contractors, Dustin Harrison and Bruce Triplett, in an aircraft.

Another soldier and a civilian contractor were wounded. About a kilometer down the road, another smaller group of the militants fired on Camp Simba, a section of the adjacent Kenyan navy base where U.S. forces are housed.

During the Manda Bay attack, it took about 20 minutes for the Marine special operations team to get to the airfield and begin to fight back against the militants, who had made it onto the flight line and into buildings.

As Kenyan and additional U.S. security forces responded, al-Shabab attacked again.

It took until midnight for the military to search the airfield and adjacent buildings and declare the area secure.

During the counterattack, one Marine and one Kenyan service member were wounded.

Military investigations found poor leadership, inadequate training and a “culture of complacency” among U.S. forces undermined efforts to fend off the 2020 attack by militants.

Two military reviews of the attack by al-Shabab militants are scathing in their conclusions that there were failures across the board at the Manda Bay air base, where senior military leaders said there was a “deeply rooted culture of a false sense of security.”

Last month in December 2023, Somali and U.S. forces killed a senior leader of the militant Islamist al Shabaab group who had planned the attack.

Maalim Ayman was on a U.S. State Department Rewards for Justice wanted list, with a $10 million reward offered for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

The department said he was responsible for preparing the attack.

The strike was conducted against the militant group near Jilib town in southern Somalia, AFRICOM and the Somali Information Ministry said.

The U.S. military command in Africa, AFRICOM, confirmed that the strike near Jilib killed one al-Shabab militant and said there were no civilian casualties.

Earlier last year, the U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program offered a reward of up to $10 million “for information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of Maalim Ayman or any individual who committed, attempted or conspired to commit, or aided or abetted in the commission of the January 5, 2020, terrorist attack on U.S. and Kenyan personnel at the Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya.”

The U.S. accused Ayman of being responsible for preparing the Manda Bay Airfield attack, which killed a U.S. soldier and two U.S. Defense Department contractors.

The U.S. identified Ayman as the leader of Jaysh Ayman, an al-Shabab unit that conducts terrorist attacks and operations in Kenya and Somalia. Jaysh Ayman (Army of Ayman) includes foreign militants recruited by al-Shabab largely from East Africa.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the Manda Bay attack and published purported video of the group’s emir, Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaidah, personally meeting the attackers before the operation.

The al-Shabab video claimed the attackers included a Yemeni, an Ethiopian, a Tanzanian and Somalis.

Ayman is the second al-Shabab commander connected to the Manda Bay attack who has been killed in a U.S. strike.

In March 2020, the U.S. reported an operation that it said had killed Bashir Qoorgaab, who was linked to the planning of the operation.

A U.S. airstrike in May last year injured the head of al-Shabab’s external operations, Osman Mohamed Abdi, known as Moallim Osman.