Suffocating security ahead of Obama visit

By AFP

Presidential tours are always expensive, but especially so when the country being visited is, like Kenya, a frequent target for terrorists.

US and Kenyan officials are fixated on making sure Al-Qaeda's Somali-led affiliate, Al-Shabaab, cannot violently disrupt the US presidential visit this week.

"The American president is a high value target so an attack, or even an attempt, would raise the profile of Al-Shabaab," warned Richard Tutah, a Nairobi-based security and terrorism expert.

Mitigating that is an overwhelming security presence in the capital. "The level of security is suffocating," said Abdullahi Halakhe, a regional security analyst.

President Barack Obama is due to address an international business summit in Nairobi, an event the US embassy itself warned could be "a target for terrorists".

Hundreds of American security personnel have arrived in recent weeks. According to reports, three hotels — the Sankara, Villa Rosa Kempinski and Intercontinental — have been scouted by the Secret Service.

THE BEAST

This week the distinctive Osprey tilt-rotor aircrafts, usually stationed at the US military base in Djibouti, flew over Nairobi alongside a White Hawk chopper with presidential insignia, causing much excitement on social media.

Other military helicopters have been flown in reportedly from a US Special Forces facility at Kenya's Manda Bay base, which serves as a launchpad for raids on Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Kenya is also playing its part. Nairobi's police commander Benson Kibue said on Wednesday that 10,000 police officers would be deployed to the capital and a series of main roads would be closed during the visit.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority announced that national airspace will be closed for 50 minutes on arrival and 40 minutes on departure, unwittingly publicising the exact dates and timings of Obama's travel.

While in Nairobi, Obama is expected to travel in his bespoke, bomb-proof limousine, nicknamed The Beast.

The $1.5 million (Sh150 million) car is a moving fortress with eight-inch thick steel plates, five-inch thick bulletproof glass, Kevlar-reinforced tyres, and a presidential blood bank in the boot.

AIRLIFT MISSIONS

The Beast is one of as many as 60 vehicles flown into Kenya for the visit, according to Kenya Airports Authority officials, as photos of the vehicles arriving on cargo planes were shared on social media.

Obama's three-nation tour of Africa in 2013 was estimated to have cost between $60-100 million (Sh6-10 billion).

A planning memo leaked to the Washington Post revealed that security measures for the visit to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania included a navy aircraft carrier moored offshore, fighter jets providing 24-hour air cover, more than a dozen armoured limousines flown in and sheets of bulletproof glass imported to protect the hotels where he stayed.

Bill Clinton's 1998 six-nation Africa tour cost $42.8 million (Sh4 billion) — not including Secret Service expenses which were classified — according to the US Government Accountability Office.

Three-quarters of those costs were incurred by the Department of Defence which flew 98 airlift missions taking equipment to Africa for the tour.

No US president has ever visited Kenya which, along with its neighbour Ethiopia — also due a presidential visit on this tour — is a crucial ally in fighting Islamic extremism emanating from Somalia.

In a press conference in Washington this month Obama bemoaned the heavy security restrictions during his visit to Kenya, his father's homeland.

"I will be honest with you, visiting Kenya as a private citizen is probably more meaningful to me than visiting as president, because I can actually get outside of the hotel room or a conference centre," he said.