GARISSA (Kenya), June 29: Kenyan anti-terror police have arrested a Pakistani national of mixed Kenyan-Arab descent on suspicion he is linked to a Somalia-based Islamic militant group, police said on Sunday.

Naveed Anwar Mohamed was arrested early Saturday from the Young Muslim Association — an Islamic school funded by donors from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — in the North Eastern provincial capital Garissa, senior police officer Boniface Mwaniki said.

Mwaniki said Mohamed is suspected of having links with al-Ittihad al-Islam group based in Somalia, which the United States has often accused of links to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network.

Mwaniki said a mobile telephone and documents recovered during his arrest indicated that Mohamed had travelled to southern Somalia and spent five months there in 2002, where he received training, alongside al-Ittihad al-Islam militants.

Mohamed’s capture followed the recent deployment of a Kenyan anti-terror squad in North Eastern region, which borders Somalia, and is led by Mwaniki, an US-trained anti-terrorist investigator.

North Eastern deputy provincial police chief Daniel Serem confirmed the arrest and said that the man was transferred to Nairobi on Saturday for further interrogation.

“Although Mohamed was born in Kenya, he held a Pakistani passport and had also undergone military training in Pakistan,” Serem told AFP.