Kenya ponders terror attack as reports say insurgents now revive their EA cells

By JUMA KWAYERA

NAIROBI, KENYA: Al-Shabaab, the Islamist militant group that has claimed responsibility for Westgate attack may have succeeded in eliciting the kind of response it needed to mobilise sympathisers in and outside Somalia. But more chilling, a United Nations’ agency reports that Al-Shabaab’s financier and ideological prop, Al- Qaeda, has been rebuilding its cells in East Africa prior to the attack.

The attack is part of Shabaab’s — with Al-Qaeda’s support — wider efforts to draw attention as it struggles for relevance on the Somalia territory, experts on terrorism and conflicts in eastern Africa say. More significantly, the revival of Al- Qaeda-linked cells in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam points to intensifying rivalry and push by jihadists to create an Islamic emirate.

In the wake of Westgate attack, international organisations’ research on conflicts says that prior to the Nairobi mall attack, Al-Qaeda after expressing frustration with Al-Shabaab inclination to extreme brutality, had opted for reactivation of its cells in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

            First salvo

Laura Hutton, a researcher with Netherlands Institute of International Relations, says while the attack signals the resurgence of militia group, it “is more likely to be a first salvo of a reinvigorated Al-Shabaab than the last gasp of a defeated organisation.” Multiple reports have indicated that the insurgency faces internal problems caused by disagreements on modus operandi.

According to the researcher, “Tensions within the organisation appear to signal intensifying competition between the group’s national and international agendas, including public disagreements over strategy and objectives. Central to this has been the role of foreign fighters as well as linkages within East Africa.”

This precipitated the murder mid last month of two top Islamists from the US and UK — Al-Amriki and Al-Britani respectively.

Hutton explains that “response” in this case was designed to be a weapon to galvanise Islamists against African Mission in Somalia (Amisom) troops that routed Al- Shabaab out of their strongholds in Kismayu and Mogadishu. “Alongside the decline in Al-Shabaab support in Somalia, particularly following the fall of Kismayu, affiliates in East Africa — Al-Hijra in Kenya and groups such as the Ansar Muslim Youth Centre in Tanzania — have been under pressure to sustain attacks in the region, and in particular in Kenya,” Hutton reports.

       Reactivation of cells

Dr Emmanuel Kisiang’ani, a researcher on extremism, while agreeing the attack in Nairobi was characteristic of Shabaab reaction to internal disagreements, says the insurgents don’t care about the response of their actions outside Somalia territory.

“They are probably expecting aggressive reaction from Kenya Defence Force in Somalia in the same manner the Ethiopian army overran the country in 2006 in its push to drive out the Islamic Courts Union. What is clear is that when Al-Shabaab faces internal problems, it uses similar tactics to rally its sympathisers behind the group,” explains Dr Kisiang’ani.

UN Monitoring Group on terrorism also points to a reactivation of the cells that had been weakened through disrupted financial flows through the international electronic transfers and the hawala system.

It says that Al-Hijra, which changed its name to Muslim Youth Centre that operates in Majengo, Nairobi, is seeking “operational direction and guidance from Al-Qaeda affiliates with foreign fighters exerting growing influence within the group and calling for redirecting the group’s resources from hitting ‘soft’ targets to undertaking more complex, large-scale attacks in Kenya on behalf of Al-Shabaab.” Response as a weapon fits in well with Al-Shabaab’s schemes after a parliamentary committee on security called for the repatriation of over a million Somali migrants who ran away from the 23-year conflict in their motherland.

Chaired by Tiaty MP Asman Kamama, the committee on Monday appealed to UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to close down the camps in northern Kenya and relocate the refugees to Somalia.

The calls for crackdown on Somali aliens to root out sympathisers works in favour of Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda as it is likely to ‘herd’ the refugees together with Al-Shabaab, according to Hutton. The MPs accuse refugees of supplying the personnel and logistics that enabled the extremists to penetrate Kenyan security as it took to achieve its objective of eliciting reprisal response against perceived Al-Shabaab’s and Al-Qaeda sympathisers in Kenya, the analysts say.

Dr Kisianga’ani concurs that the refugees provide the ‘infrastructure’ and logistics used to carry out the attacks. However, he does not foresee impulsive reaction from Kenyan.

              Vetting returnees

“Who will vet the returnees? Somalis are intelligent and adept at beating traps. In addition, Kenya is under obligation to respect international laws,” says Kisiang’ani, a senior researcher at the Nairobi-based Institute for Security Studies. Think Progress, a think-tank, says in its post-Westgate attack analysis that Kenya risks providing fodder to the extremists should it retaliate by forcibly ejecting Somali refugees from its territory.

 Researcher Ken Menkhaus observes in a report published by Think Progress that retaliation by Kenyan Government has its consequences as most of the Somalis who have lived in Kenya since the fall of the Siad Barre government in 1991 are major stakeholders in Kenyan economy as a result of their extensive business and real estate investments.  “For all of the deep tensions between Somalis and Kenyans, Somalis are major stakeholders in Kenya today. Were Shabaab to launch a large-scale terrorist attack in Kenya…it would risk provoking a heavy Kenyan crackdown on all of those Somali businesses.

That in turn would provoke a backlash by Somalis against Shabaab. At that point, Shabaab would not have to worry about what the Kenyan or US governments would do to them — they’d have to worry about what fellow Somalis would do to them.

          Somali businesses

Messing with Somali business interests has never advanced the interests of any political actor in Somalia, foreign or local,” explains Menkhaus. Area Studies and International Law Research Director of Africa Programme Alex Vines agrees that the terror strike on Westgate was designed to elicit an emotive response by ordinary Kenyans against the Somalis.

Dr Vines observes, “Today, one day after the attack, Kenya’s politicians have united to condemn the Westgate terrorist atrocity. But any knee-jerk, emotive response against Somali and Muslim citizens and residents of Kenya could backfire. Improving intelligence, security and continuing to encourage a settlement in Somalia, which could accommodate moderate parts of Al Shabaab has to continue.

The Westgate terror attack is designed to draw an emotive response from Kenyan policy makers and their allies…but smart long-term strategies to engage Kenya’s Somali and Muslim communities in order to avoid further radicalisation will become increasingly important.”

Similar sentiments have been voiced by Captain Simiyu Werunga who argues that Kenya’s counter-terrorist efforts should focus more on terrorist cells rather than expulsion of refugees, which is not a long-term panacea to terrorism.

“The issue is not Somali refugees, but our corrupt security system. The information that is emerging shows that it is Kenyans who are helping terrorists gain access to the country and harbouring them. Otherwise how do these aliens get genuine identification documents? These are the elements our intelligence system should take out rather than resorting to crackdown on innocent people, which is likely to be counter-productive,” says Werunga, the chief executive of African Centre for Security and Strategic Studies.