The two men had
planned to attack hotels in the Kenyan capital used by tourists, business
executives and diplomats, Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet said,
according to a report carried by the website of Kenya's Daily Nation.
Kenya has suffered
from a series of attacks by Somali Islamist group al Shabaab, a Sunni Muslim
group that has said its assaults are aimed at driving Kenyan troops and other
members of an African Union force out of Somalia.
There was no
indication of any link to the latest arrests in the ministry statements. At
least one of the Iranians was identified as a Shi'ite Muslim, the predominant
sect in Iran .
"Two Iranians
arrested by KE (Kenyan) security agencies with a plan to mount a terror attack
in NBI (Nairobi ).
The plan was foiled and suspects arrested," the ministry wrote on Twitter.
An Interior
Ministry official confirmed the report.
The ministry
identified the two men as Abubakar Sadiq Louw, 69, describing him as a
"senior figure" in the Nairobi Shi'ite community. It named the other
as 25-year-old Yassin Sambai Juma, saying he was also from Nairobi and describing him as a
"recruit".
The two men
"have admitted to conspiring to mount terror attacks" in Kenya , the
ministry added on Twitter.
Boinnet said Louw
admitted to recruiting young Kenyans to spy and mount attacks, Daily Nation
reported.
In 2013, two
Iranian men were sentenced to life in prison by a Kenyan court for planning to
carry out bombings in the country.
In 2014, a court
ordered an Iranian man and woman held under anti-terrorism laws to serve two
years in jail or pay a fine after admitting to using fake Israeli passports to
enter Kenya. They had been detained on suspicion of planning an attack, but
officials did not say if those suspicions were laid to rest.
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