1st Kenya Rifles is an

infantry battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are e ...

of the

Kenya Army The Kenya Army is the land arm of the Kenya Defence Forces. History The origin of the present day Kenya Army lie with the British Army's King's African Rifles. In the last quarter of the 19th Century the British began actively enforcing the aboli ...

. It is a descendant of the pre-independence Kenya

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

formation the

Kings African Rifles The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions withi ...

that was formed before the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

History

As the country prepared for independence in 1962–63 the

National Assembly of Kenya The National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya is one of the two Houses of the Parliament of Kenya. Between 1966 and 2013, it served as a unicameral house. In 2013 ( 11th Parliament), it became the lower house when the Senate was reestablish ...

passed a bill (Kenya Bills 1963) to amend the status of Kenyan military forces. Three battalions of the KAR were in country (3, 5, and 11 KAR). Accordingly, former KAR units of them were transformed into Kenyan military forces and the newly independent Kenyan Government was legally empowered to assign names to them. This took effect from the time of the independence ceremonies, midnight, 12 December 1963. Thus 3 KAR, 5 KAR, and 11 KAR became 3 Kenya Rifles, 5 Kenya Rifles, and 11 Kenya Rifles. The battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Karigo participated in independent Kenya's first parade in December 12 1964 as the country became a republic Mutinies by the

Tanganyika Rifles The Tanganyika Rifles was the sole regiment in the Tanganyikan army, from 1961 to 1964. History With the independence of Tanganyika in December 1961, the two battalions of the King's African Rifles which had been raised in the colony were trans ...

and the

Uganda Rifles }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sout ...

in January 1964 set the stage for the unrest that took place within the Kenya Rifles. Faced with many of the same problems that confronted Kenyan soldiers, Tanganyikan and Ugandan soldiers won improved pay and the dismissal of expatriate British officers by threatening their newly sovereign politicians with violence. On the evening of 24 January 1964, the failure of the Kenyan Prime Minister to appear on television, where 11th Kenya Rifles junior soldiers had been expecting a televised speech and hoping for a pay rise announcement, caused the men to mutiny. Parsons says it is possible that the speech was only broadcast on the radio in the

Nakuru Nakuru is a city in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya, Rift Valley region of Kenya. It is the capital of Nakuru County, and was formerly the capital of Rift Valley Province. As of 2019, Nakuru had an urban and rural population of 570,674 inhabitant ...

area where Lanet Barracks, home of the battalion, was located. Kenyatta's government held two separate

courts-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

for 43 soldiers. In the aftermath of the mutiny and following courts-martial, the 11th Kenya Rifles was disbanded. A new battalion, 1st Kenya Rifles, was created entirely from 340 Lanet soldiers who had been cleared of participation in the mutiny by the Kenyan Criminal Investigations Division (CID). Today this unit is based in

Nanyuki Nanyuki is a Market town in Laikipia County of Kenya lying northwest of Mount Kenya along the A2 road and at the terminus of the branch railway from Nairobi. The name is derived from Enyaanyukie Maasai word for resemblance. It is situated just ...

, Central

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

. The battalion is currently allied with

The Light Infantry The Light Infantry was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Light Division. The regiment was one of four 'large' regiments formed after the 1966 Defence White Paper through the amalgamation of units of the Light Infantry Brigad ...

of the

Operations

The battalion saw action during the Shifta War and it is credited with the formulation of present-day anti banditry operations due its performance in areas like Isiolo, Merti and Garbatulla during the conflict. The battalion further gained repute when it recovered huge caches of weaponry during the Boka Wells operations in 1996. The unit has also been deployed to Southern Somalia under

Operation Linda Nchi Operation Linda Nchi ( sw, Linda Nchi; "Protect the Country") had the Kenya Defence Forces enter southern Somalia beginning in 2011. The Kenyan government declared the operation completed in March 2012, but its forces then joined AMISOM in So ...

References

{{reflist Military units and formations of Kenya Military units and formations established in 1964