On Tuesday the Nairobi Thai hotel the“DusitD2 was raided by Al Shabaab gunmen who killed 21 civilians and left several others injured.
Well according to experts the Al Shabaab could have targeted the Dusit D2 with a prior reason.
According to Abdullahi Abdille of the International Crisis Group (ICG), the location of three Western embassies are situated around the Hotel area.
While explaining further he said, “You realise since the Westgate attack, the terrorists have never raided Nairobi, choosing to concentrate their attacks in the northern counties such as Mandera and Garissa and to an extent Lamu.
“These attacks have not yielded the attention they normally crave, so it was only natural that they hit a target in Nairobi for maximum attention, and what better target than a hotel in a neighbourhood teeming with Western embassies?” he noted.
Security Expert Mwenda Mbijiwe, “I am really baffled at the choice of the hotel as a target, even the mere fact that they only managed to kill 14 people, going by the official figures.
“The fact that our security forces managed to evacuate more than 700 people should tell you that the attack failed miserably,” he added.
Unfortunately the attack happened on the third anniversary of the El Adde attack in Somalia, which saw terror group Al-Shabaab overrun an African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) army base on January 15, 2016, killing more than 100 soldiers, a stark reminder that the terror threat is far from being neutralised.
Ever since the El Adde attack, the terror group has been trying to carry out attacks in Nairobi with little success.
In February last year, police foiled a major attack in Nairobi after they arrested several armed suspects in Merti, Isiolo, as they headed to the capital city.