Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday named Charles Muriu Kahariri as defense chief after the death of his predecessor in a helicopter crash.
\nHe replaces Francis Omondi Ogolla who was among 10 military officers killed when their chopper went down in a remote area of northwestern Kenya on April 18.
\nKahariri had previously served as deputy to Ogolla, 62, who had been Chief of Defense Forces for a year and was about to mark 40 years of military service.
\nA former Kenya Navy deputy commander, Kahariri joined the Kenya Defense Forces in April 1987, rising through the ranks during \u201chis illustrious career spanning over three decades,\u201d according to a defense ministry profile.
\nThe offensive followed the abduction of four foreigners, including two Spanish aid workers, from a giant refugee camp near the border.
\nKahariri served as the maritime component commander during that military campaign codenamed \u201cOperation Linda Nchi\u201d — \u201cProtect the Country\u201d in Swahili.
\nThe graduate of the US Naval War College was the task force commander of the operation that captured the Al-Shabaab bastion of Kismayo, a key port which served as a \u201ccommercial hub\u201d for the extremists.
\nThe promotion of Kahariri to the defense chief post and the rank of general was among several appointments announced by Ruto.
\nHe also named Major General Fatuma Gaiti Ahmed as commander of the Kenya Air Force, the first woman in the nation\u2019s history to hold the position.
\nShe replaces John Mugaravai Omenda who was promoted to Vice Chief of the Defense Forces and the rank of lieutenant general.
\nMajor General Paul Owuor Otieno was also named commander of the navy.
\nUnder Kenyan military regulations, there is only one four-star general at any given time, with the president being a five-star general as the commander-in-chief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday named Charles Muriu Kahariri as defense chief after the death of his predecessor in a helicopter crash. He replaces Francis Omondi Ogolla who was among 10 military officers killed when their chopper went down in a remote area of northwestern Kenya on April 18. Kahariri had previously served as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20587,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20581\/revisions\/20587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}