NAIROBI, Kenya Sep 18 – Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States have launched a new counter-terrorism hotline and online reporting portal in a fresh push to harness information from communities to detect and disrupt terrorist threats before attacks occur.

📻 Breaking It Down

The initiative, unveiled in Nairobi on Friday, gives Kenyans a toll-free and anonymous channel to report suspected terrorist activity, radicalisation, recruitment, terrorism financing, suspicious movements and other information that could assist security agencies.

The toll-free hotline, 0800 900 900, will officially go live on October 15, 2026, alongside an anonymous online reporting platform and case-management system for receiving, assessing and prioritising reports.

It is the latest development in a security partnership between the three countries that has evolved over more than two decades, with cooperation spanning counter-terrorism investigations, financing, prosecution, rehabilitation, intelligence sharing and protection of critical infrastructure.

📌 What You Need to Know

The launch comes as Kenya continues to face a terrorism threat largely concentrated along its border with Somalia.

The Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies’ Terror Attacks and Arrests Observatory recorded 72 terror attacks in Kenya in 2025, down from 85 the previous year. Fatalities fell from 107 in 2024 to 50 in 2025, although security personnel accounted for nearly half of those killed, with 23 officers losing their lives and 78 injured.

Government figures covering September 2024 to August 2025 recorded 61 terror-related incidents, including 15 active-shooter incidents, 20 improvised explosive device attacks and nine kidnappings involving 119 victims. Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Lamu accounted for the incidents recorded during the period.

The UK continues to identify the Kenya-Somalia border and parts of northern and coastal Kenya as areas where terrorism poses a significant security risk, with frequent attacks in the border regions attributed largely to al-Shabaab.

Against this backdrop, officials from the three countries said the new platform is intended to close the gap between what communities observe and what specialised security agencies can act upon.

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who represented President William Ruto at the launch in Nairobi on Friday, said the initiative was a critical addition to Kenya’s counter-terrorism architecture.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya