Is Kenya loosing the war it started?
Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabab after the kidnappings of four foreigners.
One of the foreigners, a cancer-stricken quadriplegic Frenchwoman kidnapped off a Kenyan resort island, died in captivity in Somalia.
From Washington’s perspective, the rise of Islamism in the Horn of Africa put Kenya on the front lines in the global fight against terrorism after a series of cross-border raids by the Somalia-based Islamist militant group al Shabaab.
In the recent report gunmen have kidnapped an Italian voluntary worker and wounded five others, including young children, as they opened fire in Kenya’s southeast coastal region of Kilifi, police said.
The National Police Service wishes to inform the public that last evening at about 8pm, a gang of men armed with AK 47 rifles attacked Chakama Trading centre in Chakama, Makongeni sub location in Kilifi county, about 80 kilometres west of Malindi town. 1/6
— National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) November 21, 2018
The unidentified attackers, armed with assault rifles, fired indiscriminately at residents at about 8pm local time (17:00 GMT) on Tuesday in the Chakama trading centre in Kilifi county, about 80km west of Malindi town, the National Police Service said on Twitter.
When Kenya dispatched some 2,000 troops across the border into Somalia on October 16, officials in Nairobi argued that they’d had little choice. Kenya’s internal security minister, George Saitoti, said, “Kenya has been and remains an island of peace, and we shall not allow criminals from Somalia, which has been fighting for over two decades, to destabilize our peace.” A recent spate of kidnappings of tourists and aid workers inside Kenya, Saitoti and others said, was the final straw.
Accordingly, Nairobi invaded its neighbor to secure its eastern border and to create a buffer zone inside Somalia.
But this case for war is less than convincing, as it is difficult to argue that the threat from al Shabaab is substantially worse than it has been in years past. Kenyan troops have armed, trained, and organized proxy forces to fight al Shabaab on the border since at least 2009, albeit to no great effect..gif?q=35&auto=format&w=1200)
For at least three years, al Shabaab has threatened armed attacks on Kenya; cross-border raids by al Shabaab fighters have been a fact of life in northeastern Kenya for some time. In fact, by some estimates, the overall threat from al Shabaab has declined in recent months with the UN’s envoy to Somalia confirming that Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers had actually weakened the al Qaeda-affiliated militants.
Somalia’s decades of instability have sent shock waves across the border as guns and armed gangs flowed into Kenya. Nairobi has often met such threats with coercive and repressive measures, such as imposing movement restrictions against Kenya’s own Somali population. In return, Muslim communities have a long-standing suspicion of the Kenyan state and its motives.
The police have however assured the public that pursuit of the attackers will leave no stone unturned.
We assure the public that we are sparing no effort in tracking down the criminals and rescue the victim. 6/6
— National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) November 21, 2018
Can Kenya win the war on al Shabaab?