Hundreds of troops from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda began the East African Community (EAC) anti- terror exercise here on Thursday to boost the region's ability to combat terrorism.

The ten-day exercise, dubbed TREND MARKER, includes mainly preventive measures and counter-terrorism enforcement measures to fight terrorism when it arises and involves both covert and overt operations in countering and fighting terrorism," said Gen. Jeremiah Kianga, Kenya's newly appointed Chief of General Staff.

The operation is intended to produce common EAC standard operating procedures for countering terrorism, he added at the start of the military drill.

Meanwhile, John Koech, Kenya's East African and Regional Co- operation Minister, called for heightened civilian vigilance to fight terrorism in east Africa.

"The war on terrorism is every citizen's responsibility and must be fought by all available means. No matter where you live in the East African Community region, everybody is needed in preventing terrorist acts," Koech said.

East Africa has recently been hit twice by terrorists, the first being the August 1998 twin bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands others.

The second happened in November 2002, when a vehicle packed with explosives slammed into the lobby of an Israeli-owned hotel near the Kenyan port of Mombasa and detonated, killing 15 people and the three presumed suicide bombers.

Affiliates of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network claimed responsibility for both attacks, prompting a series of terrorism alerts for the region.

Source: Xinhua