Mitigation Measures on Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Attacks in Mandera East Subcounty, Mandera County, Kenya

In the recent years, incidents on the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), particularly by non-state armed groups, have been on the rise. These attacks are usually directed to soft targets to achieve maximum lethal effect, terror and societal disruption. Thus, the 2015 leaders’ summit on peacekeeping resolved that more attention was needed to be put on the issue of IED attacks owing to the effects that these devices were having on the lives of numerous persons. Therefore, this study sought to analyse the mitigation measures on IED attacks in Mandera East Sub County, Mandera County, Kenya. The study was based on the Deterrence Theory. The study employed a descriptive survey design, making use of both quantitative and qualitative data. The study was limited to Mandera East Sub-County, which has a population of 159, 638. The sampled respondents were 395 household heads. Qualitative data was classified into major themes based on objectives and presented in verbatim, while quantitative data was analysed and presented in form of figures and tables. It was established that information and intelligence is vital towards stopping the IED attacks. As such, it is recommended that the Government should invest on border security surveillance, and strategically position the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) Units along the Somalia-Kenya border, to provide early warning, deterrence and prompt reactive capability on IED attacks.