Resolving Al-Shabaab's Menace in Kenya

"Our territorial integrity is threatened with serious security threats of terrorism. We cannot allow this to happen at all............ It means we are now going to pursue the enemy, who are the al-Shabaab, to wherever they will be, even in their country," Kenya's Internal Security Minister George Saitoti (2011)

The shooting spree that left about 147 people dead at Kenya’s Garissa University imbued the trade mark of an Al-Shabaab terrorist attack. Being the latest, Kenya has experienced several of such notably among which was the Nairobi Westgate Shopping Mall attack of September 2013.

Bodies of slain students strewn at a Hostel in Kenya's Garissa University
Source:buzzkenya.com/kenyan-university-attack-victims-bodies-still-on-school-ground-face-down-and-shot-in-back-of-head/

Bordered by a politically unstable neighbour which is referred to in some quarters as the ‘World’s eternal headache’, Somalia is home to the notorious Al-Shabaab movement which thrives there no thanks to the lack of an effective central government authority since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991.

A divided Somalia with different spheres of control
Source:http://springtimeofnations.blogspot.com/2012/10/northern-mali-and-gates-of-hell-flemish.html

Ever since the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998, Kenya has since become a high risk target for terrorist attacks and it has since then experienced several.

The Al-Shabaab (Arabic word for ‘the youth’) movement grew from the ashes of what was left of the ICU (Islamic Courts Union) that sought to establish central authority in Somalia in 2005. Fearing radical Islamic expansionism owing to the declaration of Sharia law and a defacto Islamic Caliphate by the ICU, their reign was cut short by an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006 with the motive of curtailing a renewed secessionist agitation of Ethiopian Somalis in Ethiopia’s Ogaden province and buoyed by US fears of an Al Queda haven in Somalia.

Upon the dismantlement of the ICU, it was hoped that the internationally backed TFG (Transitional Federal Government) formed to centrally administer Somalia in 2004 but based in Kenya (due to security issues) will assume and begin to assert governmental authority in Somalia. Not even the transfer of the seat of the TFG from Kenya to Mogadishu could win the hearts of the dismantled ICU. Though some warlords and ICU members joined the TFG, greater members of the youth wing of the ICU transmuted to form the Al-Shabaab movement whose mission was to neutralize and abolish the authority of the TFG and drive out foreign forces backing the TFG from Somali soil.

Meleed in the ensuing conflict orchestrated by Al-Shabaab, refugees poured into Kenyan soil and were sheltered at Dadaab. Following the commitment of the Burundian and Ugandan governments to send troops to Somalia to back the TFG in the fight for territorial control against Al-Shabaab, the movement launched its first attack outside Somali soil in the bombing of a football viewing centre in Kampala (Uganda’s capital) during the 2010 world cup final match.

The renewed outpour of Somali refugees into Kenya was also accompanied by diffused incursions of Al-Shabaab into Kenyan territory, a resultant of which saw an increase in the occurrence of kidnappings of foreigners in North Eastern Kenya.

Tourism being a key industry in Kenya, and Nairobi a host to significant UN presence, including many international and local NGOs involved in humanitarian relief and other activities; there were increased concerns about the Kidnapping trend especially when several Europeans were seized in the Lamu area in September and October 2011, a resultant which hit the  tourism industry hard. The last straw was when two Spanish aid workers with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were kidnapped in the Dadaab refugee camp, near the Kenya-Somalia border, on 13th October 2011. After this incident, the Kenyan government ordered a full scale invasion Somalia with the aim of neutralizing Al-Shabaab and creating a buffer zone by establishing an autonomous Somali government at the Juba/Shebelle region to act as a defensive bulwark against cross-border incursions by Al-Shabaab in Northern Kenya. For this Kenyan initiative, the country became a target for Al-Shabaab attacks ever since and the Garissa mass killing is one of several of such.

The proposed Kenyan buffer sphere of influence in Somalia
Source: blog.crisisgroup.org/africa/2013/05/21/jubaland-in-jeopardy-the-uneasy-path-to-state-building-in-somalia/

Neutralizing guerrilla insurgency has been a hard task to accomplish by the best of the world’s armies, and as such, the Kenyan Al-Shabaab experience is not a new phenomenon.

Neutralizing the Al-Shabaab menace will essentially entail proffering a permanent solution to the Somali problem. The age long regional mistrust which bore the Kenya-Ethiopia defence pact of 1964  intrinsically targetting Somalia must be brought to bear to include Somalia in the fray. Regional powers of East Africa should come to respect Somalia’s distinctive ethno-religious identity which places Islam at the centre of Somali culture and thus any Somali government must be inclusive of all faction with minimal influence from regional powers. Only then will Somalia’s Al-Shabaab stop being a regional menace.