Kenyan mobile operators on Wednesday cut services to unregistered SIM cards from their networks amid growing pressure from government officials.

Following the terror attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall by Somali militant group al Shabaab, Kenya police allege the attackers used unregistered SIM cards to communicate.

Subsequently, Kenyan government officials earlier this week said that chief executives of mobile operators in the country could face arrest over the sale of unregistered lines.

The country’s telecoms regulator, the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), has even gone as far as to say it could suspend licences of mobile operators that do not comply with the country’s SIM registration requirements.

But in a united front, the chief executives of Safaricom, Telkom Kenya, Yu and Airtel held a press briefing this week in which they said that all their subscribers have registered SIM cards.

However, reports then emerged on Wednesday that the firms had started blocking unregistered SIM cards from their networks following an order by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“Move with speed in ensuring that the unregistered SIM cards are disabled completely,” said Kenyatta.

“We do not want unscrupulous people to use them in perpetrating criminal activities,” he added.

On Wednesday, reports started flooding in about subscribers, who claim that they have registered SIM cards, having received messages telling them that their lines are not registered.

It is unclear as to how many SIM cards have had services cut.

Kenyan mobile subscribers last year rushed to register their SIM cards by a 31 December 2012 deadline set by the CCK.

And Kenyan technology expert Kennedy Kachwanya has told ITWeb Africa that the country’s government now has a renewed focus on SIM registrations following the al Shabaab terror attack in Nairobi.

“There’s a lot of criticism from the public that the attack was not handled well,” Kachwanya told ITWeb Africa.

“So, in a way, the government want to show that at least they’re doing something.

“So, telcos are an easy target in one way or another,” he said.

Kachwanya added though that there is a need in Kenya to focus again on SIM registrations, as after a December 2012 deadline and before the September 2013 al Shabaab attack, there was little attention given to unregistered cellphone users in the country.