If the enemy is within our borders, Kenya Somalis must lead the battle

There were two crucial points made by Northeastern leaders during their press briefing on Monday. One was their unequivocal, if belated, concurrence that KDF must remain in Somalia. Kenyan Somalis of every hue, irrespective of what they think of Al-Shabaab, have been strongly advocating the pullout of the troops.

Perhaps not coincidentally this happens to be the terror group’s core objective.

Online chatter among ordinary Somalis, which is very dismissive of the soldiers, is that they are in Somalia only to earn fat allowances. Typical of the mindset, the terror menace is hardly mentioned. For the record, not a single penny for the Amisom force comes from the impoverished and ramshackle Somalia state. All the money is from the UN.

For a whole generation now, Somalis have been totally unable to rebuild their failed state. The indignity of foreign occupation has blinded all those who feel kinship with Somalia to the fact that Al-Shabaab can never be allowed to be the medium to rebuild their nation. Neither Kenya nor Ethiopia will ever tolerate that. Period.

The second point the Kenyan Somali leaders made was more important. They conceded that Al-Shabaab was deeply embedded in their region. They were finally admitting the obvious, without throwing red herrings all over the place about “foreign infiltrators” and the like which has been their tendency.

RADICALISATION

Obviously they had been driven to take the cue from President Uhuru Kenyatta’s earlier, combative speech that jihadi radicalisation is happening right amongst them in homes, madrassas and mosques presided over by rogue imams, and without local community leaders and Muslim institutions seriously lifting a finger.

Does the dramatic turnaround by the Kenyan Somali leadership mark a genuine change of heart? Or is it prompted by the fear of further economic isolation? Let us wait and see. They have promised to ramp up campaigns against extremism and to work with the authorities in identifying the terrorists and their sympathisers hiding within their community. Let’s see how the co-operation goes. If things don’t change, or they get worse, the state can escalate matters.

All along, the country had been lulled by the false narrative that jihadi radicalisation arose from state-sanctioned Muslim marginalisation and discrimination and all that woolly stuff. A law student who is the son of a chief is hardly the type who is “marginalised”. Alienation could be the problem, but that’s a different thing. We were told all would be fine, if only the police stopped harassing innocent Muslims.

When the issue of Nyumba Kumi was raised, we were told it was intrusive, that it violated personal liberties. When police raided mosques in Mombasa where crude weapons and home-made bombs were stored, they were told they were violating the freedom of worship and desecrating holy places.

The police are constantly lectured on getting good intelligence. All of which sounds fine. Yet what is intelligence, if it does not start with profiling people? You don’t look for cattle rustlers in Nairobi’s Muthaiga. Nor are you likely to find many jihadists in Maasai manyattas. Besides, how helpful have the Muslim networks in North Eastern and at the Coast been when this intelligence is being collected?

Haven’t the same people been clamming up about neighbours who they know are potential killers? Why are police informers treated like traitors and even killed in Mombasa?

We should start with the obvious remedies. Vet all imams and root out all the undesirable ones from the mosques. Monitor madrassas very closely. Shut down the Dadaab camp and don’t allow UNHCR to dictate otherwise. Freezing suspect hawala accounts was the right step. Also, enable the Recce unit to deploy more quickly by enhancing its mobility.

Going forward, Amisom should let KDF take charge in Somalia’s Gedo province beyond its Middle and Lower Jubaland sector mandate. Terrorists in Somalia and those of North Eastern Kenya are taking refuge there after they conduct raids in Kenya.

The KDF should make it very, very expensive for Al-Shabaab to take a Kenyan life. Israel’s ruthless Mossad has a unit called Kidon. Google it.

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