[wanabidii] Sympathy for our neighbours Kenya

Sympathy for our neighbours Kenya

Posted  Friday, September 27  2013 at  00:00. The Citizen, Tanzania. By Mobhare Matinyi, Dar es Salaam.

While discussing the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing I argued that if the most guarded nation on earth like the United States can fail to prevent a sloppy terrorist attack even after being alerted by Russian intelligence, how safe are other nations? On that day, I had no idea that Kenya would be attacked by terrorists the way it was.

Our neighbours have been hit so hard by the terrorists that each one of us in the East African region feels the pain in our bones, muscles and heart. The cruel attacks at Nairobi's Westgate Mall, just like the 1998 terrorist attacks at the American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, will change the region forever.

Although Al Shabaab, the self-declared Al Qaeda franchise, may have chosen Kenya as a target for their own reasons, coincidentally they had chosen one of the hapless countries in Africa in terms of defendce, security and intelligence. Sadly, Kenya has no proven history of any remarkable performance in the three mentioned areas.

Starting with the intelligence service, which should have been the leader in uncovering this specific terrorist mission, the country reformed its apparatus in 1998, effectively 35 years after independence, changing it from the colonial-styled special branch of the police to a modern security and intelligence outfit.

That itself tells a lot even without delving deeper, and no wonder Kenyans are asking how terrorists could plan for months without being detected, then enter the mall in large numbers with a large amount of ammunition enough to sustain them for four days, then eventually manage to escape unnoticed leaving a few of them to finish the evil task.

One Kenyan senator, Mike Sonko, is still wondering as to what happened to the reports from two women of Asian origin that the police and intelligence authorities received through his facilitation two months ago. No one has refuted the words he uttered in the Senate.

An Aljazeera blogger, Catherine Wambui-Soi, is asking many questions including this one: How could such a well-planned and co-ordinated massacre have escaped the security intelligence? The Internet is full of pertinent questions that Kenyans are asking themselves. There will probably be no answers as has been the case in many other bloody incidents in the country.

No doubt terrorists are highly-skilled in whatever they do, let alone being extremely determined, but it is hard to comprehend how the Kenyan Defence Forces could take four days to figure out how to end the siege. The police, just like the military, was equally unprepared, clearly incompetent forcing the government to seek help from Israel and elsewhere.

At one time one could see from the live telecasts worried Kenyan soldiers wearing the same uniforms but with a beret here, a hat there, and on other man a helmet. This is all after the sad news that the defence forces arrived at the scene an hour late. In the end only five terrorists were reported killed while six soldiers and 63 civilians perished, and the number could go high.

Kenyans know their police very well, the reason why they give them many interesting names, and it is so sad if the intelligence is no different. Yes, even the powerful US with all its machinery cannot stop every terrorist, but still Kenyans deserve answers. Those who died could have been alive today had the system worked well.

Kenya's military is in fact, technically, one of the reasons why Al Shabaab targeted the country in the first place. According to Al Shabaab, while conducting its operation in Somalia, the Kenyan Air Force killed women and children who were taking refuge in a designated camp. That blunder, which re-occurred, forced the United Nations to condemn Kenya. The only reason why air force pilots will keep hitting wrong targets repeatedly is simply incompetence.

But, it is also on record that only Kenya had its army general captured during a peacekeeping mission in West Africa in the 1990s. The general was later freed but demanded his soldiers be freed as well forcing the rebels to recapture him. Having a general captured in operation is not a good sign for any military in the world.

Thus, against this kind of background, bearing in mind that this is just a snapshot of what could have been narrated in hundreds of pages, these bad guys from Somalia had found an easy target in all senses and very inhumanely executed their plan. Other African nations ought to learn a lesson and get ready for anything.

Terrorism is now becoming a fact of life, and therefore no government should let its guard down. Terrorists are murderers who think they can go to heaven by unjustly killing innocent people. Al Shabaab should have fought Kenyan troops in Somalia, not civilians in Nairobi.

http://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/Sympathy-for-our-neighbours-Kenya/-/1840392/2009068/-/6s1enwz/-/index.html