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Africa Horn
Kenya struggles to contain Al-Shabab terror attacks
2012-05-18
[Shabelle] Kenyan police have set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock
Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up!
a suspect in a grenade attack on a restaurant in Mombasa that killed one person on Tuesday. It is the latest in a string of attacks since Kenya launched a military intervention in Somalia.

Kenya has been hit by a series of grenade attacks since it sent tanks and troops intoSomalialate last year. The authorities are blaming the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab
... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
for the violence.

"It is about time that al-Shabaab gives up and takes part in a grinding of the peace processor," tweeted the Kenyan military spokesperson Emmanuel Chirichiri on the social network Twitter in April.

A tweet in response was not long in coming. "Al-Shabaab encourages and supports all Kenyan Mohammedans who want to fight a jihad against the Kenyan government,"

Although there is no evidence that the tweet came from al-Shabaab, this conversation shows that Kenya and al-Shabaab are at war, not only online but across the region.

In October 2011,Kenyadeclared war on al-Shabaab and sent troops into Somalia. "The argument was that Kenyan troops inSomaliacould push al-Shabaab as far away as possible from the Kenya border, and if possible to eliminate them," says Emmanuel Kisiangani, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies ( ISS) inNairobi.

"Today you can say they prevented major terror attacks, but they haven't managed to stop terrorist activities in the country," he adds.

Hunt for German suspect

By "major attacks" Kisiangani was referring to bombings such as the 1998 U.S. Embassy attack inNairobi, during which a truck full of explosives killed more than 200 people, or the suicide kaboom on a hotel inMombasa owned by Israelis, which left more than ten people dead in 2002.

These attacks, says Kisiangani, were directed against the West and not specifically atKenya. However the attacks of recent months, in which grenades have been detonated in busy places inNairobi andMombasa, are being linked toKenya's intervention in Somalia.

A German national, Ahmed Khaled Müller, is being sought for questioning by the Kenyan authorities in connection with a church attack in late April which killed two people and injured 15.

Müller was incarcerated
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
inPakistain in 2009 and is believed to have enteredKenya illegally. A spokesperson for the Kenyan police, Charles Owino, has urged him to come forward and clarify some of the allegations against him.

Al-Shabaab sympathizers in Kenya

Analysts suspect that there are numerous foreign nationals fighting for al-Shabaab in Somalia. Kisiangani believes that the Islamist Death Eater group can draw on sympathizers in Kenya and is even able to recruit supporters among the Somalian refugees.

Total protection against terrorism is hardly possible because ofKenya's mostly non-existent border with Somalia and an easily accessible coastline.

Terrorism cannot be defeated by military means alone, says Kisiangani. He believes the root causes such as poverty and deprivation need to be addressed.

"Groups who feel deprived are easily brainwashed by this radical ideology," he adds.
Posted by:Fred

#1  Send for Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the locals will only produce a blundering mess.
Posted by: Besoeker   2012-05-18 05:30  

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