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Kenyan jihadists, badysis badysts say.
Police are hunting Ali Salim Gichunge, the suspected mastermind of the January 15 attack on the Dusit hotel and office complex that left 21 dead, and Violet Kemunto Omwoyo, described as a Christian convert to Islam.
READ: In deadly Nairobi attack, stories of fear, bravery and loss
Kenyan members recruited in the past by al-Shabaab.
Somalia's al-Qaeda affiliate has mainly used recruits from Kenya's ethnic Somali community or coastal Muslim communities.
In addition, Shabaab's major previous attacks in Kenya, against the Westgate shopping mall in 2013, which left 67 dead, and the University of Garissa in 2015 in which 148 people died, were planned in Somalia.
"Previous prior attacks"
Guns stashed in home
Gichunge, believed to be aged about 23, is from central Isiolo and is the son of a Kenyan soldier. His name is from the country's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu.
Omwoyo, aged in the late 20s, is believed to be from Kisii in western Kenya.
The peer shared a home in Ruaka, northwest of the capital, where the police say they are guns stashed in a hole in one of the rooms.
Police found the hideout after Gichunge was identified as the owner of a vehicle which transported the attackers to the hotel and office complex.
He was first thought to be among those killed.
But it was both he and Omwoyo were at the time of the operation.
However, there are still similarities with the Westgate and Garissa attacks.
The five Dusit attackers were all killed during the attack, and at least three of them were from Kenya's ethnic Somali community, one from the other.
The weapons they used were transported from Somalia via Lamu County where the Islamist group has long held a strong presence in the Boni Forest, or via the Mandera town border with Somalia, according to police sources.
Training
Investigators say that Gichunge spent time training in Somalia.
"Somalia remains the epicenter of the Shabaab movement," said Matt Bryden, an badyst with the Sahan think-tank.
But as Shabaab has spread to the region, he said, "has evolved a lot," said Bryden.
In 2015, Sahan was forced to escape the walls of the country, the jihadists had shifted their recruiting drive in Kenya, and the Rift Valley and the west of the country.
The report also notes the increasing recruitment of Christian converts, particularly due to the granting of bursaries for Islamic Studies, and of girls and young women.
In this light, Bryden said that it was a surprise that Shabaab's recruitment strategy in Kenya was paying off.
"They've just been able to organize more complex operations," he said.
The jihadists were recruited by the Kenyan branch of Shabaab, known as al-Hijra, which the United States Department of Foreign Affairs and International Development has facilitated to Somalia for "terrorism purposes".
These are people who know Kenya well, they know the language well, and they can move around the country quite easily, "they do not look ethnically Somali, a Kenyan human rights activist said on condition of anonymity.
The Somali people live mainly in Somalia, but large populations also live in Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
The new jihadists are radicalised in "areas which are not closely watched" and "they use the place where the police will not expect them", the source said.
They are doing this because of what Human Rights Watch researcher Otsieno Namwaya said is the "ethnic profiling" of jihadists in the country.
"In the minds of many Kenyans, Shabaab are necessarily from the Somali community.The reason for this is they have been blinded by the anti-Somali rhetoric of the government," said Nanwaya.
He referred, among other things, to the government's efforts in 2016 to justify closing the Dadaab refugee camp in the east of the country – Somalis – by claiming it was there Westgate attack was planned.
"We're not having discussions we should have some reasons for pushing Kenyans to radicalize," says Namwaya.
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