By Alloys Musyoka
East Africa countries have been urged to forge a coordinated regional approach to close regulatory loopholes, strengthen border controls, harmonize laws, and enhance intelligence-sharing mechanisms in making the region safe from improvised explosive devices threats.
During a global counter terrorism center capacity building of experts on strengthening community resilience against improvised devices through preventive, coordinated and whole of society approaches in east African in Kwale call was made for unity.
Kenya national director general counter-terrorism center Kibien Kigen said that there is a critical need for countries to work together in combating terrorisms.
He said that no single nation can eliminate the threats in isolation calling for a concerted effort of unity among east African nations and Africa at large.
The Global counter terrorism center capacity building 2026 under the auspices of the Global Counter Terrorism Forum is titled: Strengthening Community Resilience Against Improvised Explosive Devices through Preventive, Coordinated and Whole of Society Approaches in East Africa.
The training was convened in response to the growing use of improvised explosives devices by terrorist’s groups across Africa posing a serious and evolving security challenge.
In 2023, four of the ten most affected countries were in West Africa with an estimated 1,600 IED incidents occurring in the region between 2010 and mid-2022.
The Global counterterrorism center capacity building to security experts is aimed at creating a shared understanding among participants of the evolving IED threat, its drivers, and its impact across the region.
Participants will be examining existing legal, operational, and intelligence shortcomings that allow IED networks to thrive and also provide practical tools, technical insights, and good practices for dismantling supply chains and countering terrorist use of IEDs.
Kigen said that fostering stronger inter- and intra-agency coordination and promoting regional cooperation to close loopholes and enhance collective resilience is very important.
East Africa has seen an alarming growth in both the prevalence and sophistication of IED attacks primarily driven by the operations of Al-Shabaab and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
Beyond immediate casualties, IEDs exacerbate economic loss, displace populations, cripple critical infrastructure, and result in environmental contamination, such as rendering farmland inaccessible.
Yet, dismantling regional IED supply chains continues to present a formidable challenge for law enforcement authorities, as terrorist groups increasingly exploit both legally available dual-use goods and diverted military-grade materials to construct improvised devices.
The widespread availability of chemical precursors essential to agriculture and mining, alongside everyday consumer electronics that can serve as triggers, makes regulation without disrupting legitimate commerce extremely difficult.
Compounding this, leakage from military and mining sectors, battlefield recovery, and porous borders enable transnational trafficking networks to sustain supply chains across the region.
Outdated and inconsistent legal frameworks, including weak penalties and lack of harmonized legislation, further create vulnerabilities that terrorists readily exploit.
Meanwhile, coordination gaps such as limited data sharing, unclear mandates between military and police units, and outdated monitoring lists undermine effective responses.
The rapid online dissemination of bomb-making knowledge and the difficulty of converting intelligence into admissible evidence highlight the technical and judicial obstacles faced by national systems.
