Kenyan police arrested an Iranian citizen for the alleged plotting of terror attacks against Israelis and other interests in the African country, the Kenyan newspaper The Star reported on Sunday.

The suspect, Mohammed Saeid Golabi, has visited Kenya and other countries in the area several times and is believed to be an Iranian intelligence officer who maintains a staff of Kenyans who assist in gathering intelligence on state and private targets for terror purposes.

The report quoted a number of Kenyan police sources who confirmed that Golabi has been under their surveillance for an extended period of time and is involved in plotting terror attacks against Kenyan and Israeli targets.

Last year, the New York Times reported that Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, who was one of the masterminds behind the deadly 1988 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed by Israeli agents in Iran in August at the behest of the US.

The attacks on the embassies, planned by Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the alias Abu Muhammad al-Masri, left 224 dead and hundreds injured. He was also alleged to have masterminded a 2003 attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, which killed 13, including three Israeli tourists, and injured 80.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)