How geo-politics made Kenya an easy target for major terror networks

Historically, Kenya has been a key geo-political partner of the West and therefore a strong pillar in the propagation of the West’s ideologies. Its perceived closeness to the world’s superpowers, particularly the US, Britain and Israel, does not sit well with Islamic fundamentalists. The very forces that may have contributed to Kenya being the model for regional prosperity have therefore made the nation vulnerable to terrorism. And the country remains quite attractive to retrogressive forces; it is the third largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, is a darling of Western investors compared to its neighbours, and is home to a UN agency...

Something very disturbing is happening at the coast. The government blames it on bad politics, some locals blame it on terror networks, while others swear it has everything to do with land and other “historical injustices”.

Whatever the cause, gunmen are having a party here, walking in when the sun dips, dragging men from their beds and either slitting their throats or shooting them at point blank range.

The happenings at the coast, and Mpeketoni in particular, are, sadly, not isolated. Kenya has in recent times become a gunmens’ playground, and terror group Al-Shabaab seems too eager to claim responsibility for the deaths of hundreds in recent months.

For a country that has for years enjoyed relative stability in a region rocked by political and security disasters, the events of the last two years are hard to stomach.

Never, in the 51 years of this nation, did its people ever think they will have to keep watching their backs, reporting abandoned bags, and generally living like prey in a game reserve.

SEES SOMETHING DIFFERENT

And now, after a string of attacks that have the hallmarks of organised terror — Westgate, Garissa, Wajir, Mombasa, Thika Road, among many others — security experts have started to examine the complex factors that make Kenya a lame duck in the eyes of murderous gangs.

After the killing sprees of Mpeketoni, Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility, explaining that they were punishing Kenya for its incursion into Somalia.

Nairobi, however, has insisted that it is in Mogadishu for the long haul, and that its troops will only pull out once they establish a sense of order in a country that poses the greatest security threat to Kenya.

President Kenyatta, however, sees something different in Mpeketoni. It is not terrorism, he says, but bad politics propagated by what he calls “hate mongers” and “reckless and negative propagandists”.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku, on the other hand, thinks the bloodletting is informed by land issues, which have been a thorn in the flesh of Kenya for a long time.

CHANGING GAME PLAN

So, terror, politics and land; three things that are shaping the narrative coming out of Kenya now; three things that may offer answers to the problems bedevilling the country; and three things that threaten to disturb the peace.

Of the three, however, it is terrorism that has Nairobi most worried. Even though this is not a new phenomenon in the country — terrorists first struck here in March 1975, when they blew up a bus; in 1980 when they attacked the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi; and then later in 1998, when they killed over 200 in an attack against the US embassy in Nairobi — the frequency of the latest string of attacks points to a changing game plan and exposes Kenya’s vulnerability to new forms of campaign warfare.

KEY PARTNER

Historically, Kenya has been a key geo-political partner of the West, and therefore a strong pillar in the propagation of the West’s ideologies. Its perceived closeness to the West, particularly the US, Britain and Israel, does not sit well with Islamic fundamentalists.

The very forces that may have contributed to Kenya being the model for regional prosperity have therefore exposed the nation to terrorism.

And the country remains quite attractive to retrogressive forces: it is the third largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, is a darling of Western investors compared to its neighbours, and is home to a UN agency.

Jonathan Haymakers, an ex-US Air Force serviceman living in Kenya, agrees, adding that extremists are targeting Kenya now simply because their success rate is high.

Terrorists revel in parading their bloody exploits to the world, and so if they can kill soft targets regularly, they are bound to strike again. And again. And again. “It is too easy for them right now,” says Haymakers.

RETAINS CLOSE TIES

Too easy, and the propaganda just right. At the height of the Cold War, the US procured a military agreement with Kenya to allow its soldiers access and use of the sea port of Mombasa.

Soon Washington poured hundreds of troops into the country, which they used as a base during the first Gulf War, during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, and, later, the mission to smoke out Al-Qaeda from the Horn of Africa.

Britain, on the other hand, has a Royal Air Force military base in Nanyuki, while Nairobi retains close ties with Tel Aviv, which aided the establishment of the paramilitary General Service Unit in 1964.

It is this close relationship with Israel, particularly, which alarmed the jihadists. Even when several African countries severed ties with Israel in the ’60s and ’70s over Tel Aviv’s occupation of Palestine West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula, Kenya remained committed to its bilateral relations with the nation.

END TO DIPLOMATIC LINKS

For her faithfulness, Nairobi was rewarded with a lot of goodies, including support of agricultural initiatives such as an irrigation scheme in Kibwezi.

The Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (Supkem) was not amused, and, citing Israel’s “abuse of Palestinian rights”, called for an end to diplomatic links between Kenya and Israel in September, 2001.

In an article published in this newspaper in October that same year, prominent scholar Ali Mazrui warned that the main cause of terrorism in Kenya was its association with Zionism, a movement established in the late 19th Century to advocate for, among others, Jewish sovereignty in Israel.

Mazrui wrote: “Zionism is a political ideology; Judaism is a religion. Can we have a world without terrorism for as long as Zionist power is protected by the United States? The American veto in the Security Council of the United Nations makes it difficult even to reprimand Israel for wrong-headed policies.”

SHOOTING MISSILE

Notably, the bombing of the Jewish-owned Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi in 1980 is believed to have been an Arab retaliation against Kenya’s support of the Israeli military forces who rescued the hijacked France Flight 139 plane in Uganda in 1976.

And then, in 2002, terrorists believed to be affiliated with the perpetrators of the 1998 American embassy attack detonated a bomb at a hotel on Kenya’s coast while simultaneously shooting a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli commercial aircraft, missing the target by a whisker.

The attack on Westgate Mall — owned partly by an Israeli — in September last year was explained away as retaliation for Kenya’s march into Somalia for Operation Linda Nchi.

In an interview with Doha-based satellite TV channel al-Jazeera, journalist Hamza Mohamed, the terror group's spokesperson added a new twist to the plot by claiming that the mall had been targeted “because it was frequented by Kenyan elite and diplomats, particularly Americans and Israelis”.

CLANDESTINE FORCE

Kenya, therefore, has always been at loggerheads with jihadists for its dalliance with the West. Its vulnerability is captured in Rogue Ambassador: An African Memoir, a book by Smith Hempstone, US ambassador to Kenya between 1989 and 1993.

Smith describes how Kenya had been frowned upon by radical religious fundamentalists for supporting America in an initiative to oust Libya’s Muammar Gaddaffi, Zionism’s biggest opposer at the time.

Hempstone also described how Kenya in 1991 hosted an American-trained covert troop — called Haftar Force — whose sole mission was to overthrow Gaddaffi.

The clandestine force was composed of 354 Libyans captured in the wars in central Africa and had been denied hospitality by other African countries until Kenya welcomed them.

But Kenya’s history of supporting individuals seen to pursue violent means for addressing their causes is not confined to those from Islamic nations, and closely tied with this is the issue of refugees.

RICH AND POOR

In The Global Refugee Crisis, Gil Loescher writes that developing countries that host refugees for protracted periods experience long-term economic, social, environmental and political problems which cannot be reduced to “a question of mere law enforcement”.

That is a telling assertion when you consider that, currently, Kenya’s Daadab refugee camp is home to the world’s largest refugee population.

By 2008, as reported by the UN in 2009, almost half of the global refugee population was living in cities and towns in resident countries while a negligible third lived in refugee camps. This, as Kenya has come to learn, is a major security threat.

Then there is the issue of corruption. While several efforts have been fronted by the government in fighting terrorism, corruption, made worse by a widening gap between the rich and poor, has thwarted every attempt to tame terror.

This is making donors a bit uncomfortable. And frustrated.

LACK OF STATE CAPACITY

A report by America’s Congressional Research Service late last year lamented that while the US had been working with Kenya to develop counter-terrorism measures, Kenya’s security forces, and the police in particular, were generally “poorly trained and widely corrupt”.

America spent $100 million (Sh8.7 billion) under the State Department Partnership for Regional East African Counter-terrorism (Preact) programme, as well as $9 million (Sh790 million) in anti-terrorism assistance to Kenya in 2012.

The following year Washington spent $70 million (Sh6.1 billion) in support of Kenya’s Department of Defence.

Terror expert William Rosenau, in the 2005 book al-Qaeda Recruitment Trends in Kenya and Tanzania, argues that, among other factors, lack of State capacity, particularly in the areas of police, intelligence, and law enforcement, enhances terrorists’ successful operations.

For now, even though it is not clear who was behind the Mpeketoni attacks, it is clear that Kenya’s history of dalliance with the West, its geopolitical relevance in the region, its shared border with lawless Somalia, and poor policing initiatives leave its people badly exposed.