The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Al Shabab

  • Kenyan president blames domestic foes on attacks

    Kenyan president blames domestic foes on attacks

    Kenya’s president said yesterday that lethal assaults over the past two days that left an estimated 63 people dead were the work of “local political networks,” and were not carried out by the Shabab, a Somali extremist group that has claimed responsibility for the violence.

    “The attack in Lamu was well planned, orchestrated and politically motivated ethnic violence against a Kenyan community,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said, addressing the nation and referring to the county targeted by the violence. He did not provide evidence to support his assertion.

    “This, therefore, was not an Al Shabab terrorist attack. Evidence indicates local political networks were involved in the planning and execution of the heinous attacks,” he said. “This also played into the opportunist network of other criminal gangs.”

     

    Mr. Kenyatta said police officers who had been unable to prevent the attacks had been suspended and would be immediately charged in court. “We are all hurting. Many of us are angry,” he said, calling for the count

    Some analysts questioned whether the attempt by Mr. Kenyatta to shift the blame from the Shabab was a ploy to deflect attention from the government’s failure to protect civilians from the spate of violence. Others saw the president’s words as a reaction to mounting criticism by the main opposition party, which has forcefully rebuked the government for its apparent weakness in the face of attacks that many believe were orchestrated by the Islamic militant group based in neighboring Somalia.

     

  • US strike ‘targets al-Shabab chief’

    The United States military has carried out a missile strike in Somalia against a suspected militant leader with ties to al-Qaeda and al-Shabab.
    US defence officials said they are trying to establish whether the strike killed the intended target, whose identity they have not confirmed.
    The BBC reports that the strike was aimed at a vehicle in a remote area of southern Somalia, near the town of Barawe.
    Al-Shabab is the main al-Qaeda-linked group in East Africa.
    The Pentagon said the target was a senior leader in the two organisations.
    A rebel leader has told the Associated Press news agency that it was Sahal Iskudhuq, an al-Shabab commander who was close to the head of the militant Islamist group, and to al-Qaeda.
    However, this has not been confirmed.
    The US launched a failed raid in Barawe – seen as a militant stronghold – in October to capture an al-Shabab commander.
    The group, which was responsible for the attack on a Kenyan shopping centre in September, has been weakened by an offensive by African Union forces on their haven in south-central Somalia.
    The US has recently deepened its involvement in the country by sending a small unit of military advisers to the capital, Mogadishu.

  • ‘Suicide bomber’ hits Somali capital

    At least six people have been killed after a suspected suicide attack at a hotel in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

    Interior Minister Abdikarim Hussein Guled told the BBC that 15 people had been injured after a car exploded outside the Hotel Maka.

    The hotel lies on one of the capital’s main roads, which the authorities say is usually safe.

    Islamist militant group al-Shabab was driven out of Mogadishu two years ago but often stages attacks in the city.

    The BBC says a loud explosion was heard in the city’s administrative centre just before 20:00 local time (17:00 GMT).

    The Hotel Maka is on the Maka Mukaramah road which links the presidential palace to the airport, one of the most heavily guarded areas of Mogadishu.

    It is popular with members of parliament and other officials. One report stated that a senior Somali diplomat was among the dead.

    BBC reports that witnesses nearby said they could see the wreckage of a car burning outside the hotel.

    Senior police officer Farah Aden told Reuters news agency that four policemen were among the six dead.

    The agency reported that four cars and two motorbikes were burnt out at the scene.

     

     

  • After Westgate, Al Shabab targets Kenya high schools

    After Westgate, Al Shabab targets Kenya high schools

    Leaked intelligence reports in Nairobi say the Somali terror group is finding an audience even in prominent prep schools and academies.

    But new leaks in Nairobi suggest the radical jihadi message of the Somali-based group is being promulgated much closer to home: In local madrassas and even in some prominent mainstream Kenyan high schools.

    The revelations of jihadi recruitment in Kenyan schools adds to a picture – weeks after nearly 70 people were shot and killed at Westgate – of a more extensive underground network of Al Shabab in Kenya than had been understood by the public. And it partly centers on well-known mosques.

    But their alleged presence in schools is a new wrinkle: In an unusual National Intelligence Service report, apparently written in late September and leaked to the Kenyan media last week, Al Shabab and other radical actors are described as lecturing and recruiting in schools, mosques, and in “slums” around the Eastleigh area of Nairobi that is often called “Little Mogadishu,” where Somali refugees gather and live.

     

    • Source: Google

  • al-Shabab…The terrorists ‘killing’ Kenya

    al-Shabab…The terrorists ‘killing’ Kenya

    al-Shabab, the terrorist organisation holding a Kenyan mall after seizing it at the weekend, is an enemy well-known to the Kenyan government and the international comunity.  

     

    With as many as 9,000 fighters, al-Shabab has since fought a succession of foreign forces in Somalia from Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

    The attack in Nairobi is one of the biggest al-Shabab has carried out outside Somalia. It could not have come at a more improbable time as the territory al-Shabab controls in Somalia is shrinking.

    The group has also just emerged from a leadership struggle. Al-Shabab’s shadowy leader Ahmed Abdi Godane managed to re-align the group’s leadership and consolidate his power by killing some of his main opponents.

    Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said that the country had “overcome terrorist attacks before” and vowed to “hunt down the perpetrators wherever they run to”.

    “In fact, we have fought courageously and defeated them within and outside our borders – we will defeat them again,” he added.

    So-called militant groups have been expanding their reach across the Sahel and the Sahara over the last decade.

    Most of them operate under the umbrella of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) which has its reach in Mali, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. Another organisation gaining traction is Boko Haram. Based mainly in northern Nigeria they are determined to bring Islamic law to the region. And there is al-Shabab who wants the removal of all foreign forces from Somalia.

    So how will the Kenyan government respond to the latest al-Shabab attack? Will it mean more involvement in Somalia? And what are the regional implications?

    Inside Story, with presenter Jane Dutton, discusses with guests: Hamza Mohamed, a British-Somali journalist; Ambassador David Shinn, a former US ambassador to Ethiopia and former state department coordinator for the intervention in Somalia in the 1990s; and Miguna Miguna, a Kenyan barrister and former adviser to Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

    “We need to go back before Kenyan troops went into Somalia …. Al-Shabab commanders were really angry at what they see as a broken … relation between them and the Kenyan government. Before 2011, before the Kenyan forces went into Somalia, al-Shabab controlled almost all the towns bordering Kenya and Somalia, and at that time that region of Kenya was very peaceful … what al-Shabab commanders says [is that] Kenya was at the same time planning to attack them … [and] at the same time telling them that everything was ok. As long as you don’t interfere or do anything in Kenya borders we would not attack, so al-Shabab see this as a reaction to what they see as a Kenyan action, Kenyan forces invading Somalia.”

    Somalia’s al-Shabab is linked with al-Qaeda. It has been pushed out of all of the main towns it once controlled in southern and central parts of Somalia, but still remains a potent threat.

    Al-Shabab means The Youth in Arabic. It emerged as the radical youth wing of Somalia’s now-defunct Union of Islamic Courts in 2006, as it fought Ethiopian forces who had entered Somalia to back the weak interim government.

    Although it has lost control of the towns and cities, its writ still runs in many rural areas.

    It was forced out of the capital, Mogadishu, in August 2011 and left the vital port of Kismayo in September 2012.

    Kismayo had been a key asset for the militants, allowing supplies to reach areas under their control and providing taxes for their operations.

    Analysts believe al-Shabab is increasingly focusing on guerrilla warfare to counter the firepower of AU forces.

    Who is al-Shabab’s leader?

     

    Ahmed Abdi Godane is the head of the group. Known as Mukhtar Abu Zubair, he comes from the northern breakaway region of Somaliland.

    Mr Godane is rarely seen in public. His predecessor, Moalim Aden Hashi Ayro, was killed in a US airstrike in 2008.

    Mr Godane, who was behind the group’s tie-up with al-Qaeda and has a hardline, international agenda has recently emerged victorious from an internal power-struggle.

    His rival, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, is more focussed on the struggle within Somalia. He is now in government custody, while several of his allies have been killed.

    What are al-Shabab’s foreign links?

     

    Al-Shabab joined al-Qaeda in February 2012. In a joint video, al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane said he “pledged obedience” to al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri.

    The two groups have long worked together and foreigners are known to fight alongside Somali militants.

    There have also been numerous reports that al-Shabab may have formed some links with other militants groups in Africa, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

    Has al-Shabab carried out attacks outside Somalia?

     

    Al-Shabab has said it carried out the deadly assault on a shopping centre in Nairobi on 21 September, in which at least 68 people were killed.

    It was responsible for a double suicide bombing in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, which killed 76 people watching the 2010 football World Cup final on television.

    The attack was carried out because Uganda – along with Burundi – provided the bulk of the AU troops in Somalia before the Kenyans went in.

    Analysts say the militants often enter and leave Kenya without being intercepted. Their fighters are said to even visit the capital, Nairobi, for medical treatment.

    The 2002 twin attacks on Israeli targets near the Kenyan resort of Mombasa were allegedly planned in Somalia by an al-Qaeda cell, while the US believes some of the al-Qaeda operatives who carried out the 1998 attacks on its embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam then fled to Somalia.

    Who are al-Shabab’s backers?

     

    Eritrea is its only regional ally. It denies claims it supplies arms to al-Shabab.

    Eritrea supports al-Shabab to counter the influence of Ethiopia, its bitter enemy.

    With the backing of the US, Ethiopia sent troops to Somalia in 2006 to defeat the Islamists. The Ethiopian forces withdrew in 2009 after suffering heavy casualties.

    After intervening again in 2011, it says it will hand over the territory it has seized to the AU.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Blast hits Somali government convoy

    A car bomb has exploded near a government convoy in the Somali capital Mogadishu, killing at least eight people, officials say.

    A police spokesman told AFP news agency a suicide attacker had driven a car laden with explosives at an armoured government vehicle.

    According to the same source, those inside the vehicle survived the blast.

    BBC reports that the attack comes just days before a major conference in London on the future of Somalia.

    No group said immediately it had carried out Sunday’s attack.

    The country’s main Islamist group al-Shabab, which is part of al-Qaeda, has been forced out of the main cities in the south and centre but still controls smaller towns and many rural areas.

    Five people were also injured by the explosion, a local official told Reuters news agency.

    One of the agency’s photographers said he could see three people lying motionless near the wreckage of four burning cars.

    The London conference will discuss how best the international community can support Somalia’s progress.

    More than 50 countries and organisations are due to take part when it opens on Tuesday, co-hosted by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron.