The men included two secondary school students from Mombasa and a Nigerian with a British passport, police sources said, adding that the men were on their way to joining Al-Shabaab.

Coast police boss Leo Nyongesa said the six were arrested at the weekend in the far-flung island of Kizingitini.

"Our officers laid ambush in Kizingitini and arrested the six while in transit to Somalia," Mr Nyongesa said in his office on Monday.

He reported that pamphlets connected with al-Shabaab were recovered during the Sunday evening arrests.

The group had boarded a speed boat from Lamu Island to Kizingitini before they were arrested. The police are looking for more people linked to the recruitment.

The men admitted to be recruited from a mosque in Majengo, Mombasa where radical Imam spread extremist ideologies, according to Daily Nation.

Audio and videos tapes purportedly containing Jihad sermons issued by the wanted cleric are reportedly in the hands of detectives investigating the matter.

The source said the six spent Saturday night at an isolated madrassa in Kilifi.

The officer said some Mombasa tycoons and radical Muslim clerics have established terrorist recruitment bases at the mosque and another one in Diani, Kenyn’s daily Nation published.

Separately, parents of three of the six arrested youths yesterday asked the government to bring to book those who recruited their children for al-Shabaab.

The parents said their sons disappeared on Saturday morning shortly after morning prayers at the local mosque.