The arrests sparked considerable concern about rising terrorist activities in Kenya, which has seen its tourist industry crippled by repeated bombings.
The two men were identified in court as Ahmed Abolfathi Mohammed and Mansur Musavi. They were accused of being “armed with intent to commit a felony known as grievous harm.”
One of the men was arrested in Nairobi and the other in Mombassa. Police said the men led them to the stock of RDX at the Mombassa Golf Club.
China’s Xinhua news agency said the FBI had alerted the Kenyan police to the presence in the country of the two Iranians.
RDX, which stands for Research Department Explosive, was invented in 1898 but didn’t see widespread use until World War II, when both the Axis and Allies made use of it. RDX has the major advantages of possessing greater explosive power than TNT and requiring no additional raw materials for its manufacture.
Hours after the pair was arrested, the US embassy warned of a terrorist threat in Mombassa and ordered all US government personnel to leave the city.
The next day, a senior Kenyan official denounced the US warning. “It is a reckless advisory and was totally uncalled for,” said Francis Kimemia, the head of the Public Service.
Hours after that, police in Nairobi ordered three men to halt for an inspection. They dropped a bag they were carrying and ran away. The bag was found to contain several detonators.
The following day, a grenade was thrown into a restaurant in Mombassa, killing three people.
There were, however, no indications that the detonators and grenade attack were in any way linked to the two Iranians.
Kenya last year sent troops into Somalia to attack rebel gangs that were believed to have kidnaped tourists in Kenya. The gangs attacked were linked to the Shibab, an Islamist band that claims ties to Al-Qaeda and that some think receives aid from Iran. Ever since the Kenyan raid, there have been bombings and grenade attacks along the Kenyan coast, which is the heart of the tourism industry.
In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast accused unnamed foreign media of hyping the story of the arrests to undermine the “strong” relationship that Iran has with Kenya. The story has received very little media attention outside Kenya.