Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Aaron Maasho
Ethiopia did it five years ago, the Americans a while back. Now Kenya has rolled tanks and troops across its arid frontier into lawless Somalia, in another campaign to stamp out a rag-tag militia of Islamist rebels that has stoked terror throughout the region with threats of strikes.
The catalyst for Nairobi’s incursion was a series of kidnappings by Somali gunmen on its soil. A Frenchwoman was bundled off to Somalia from northern Kenya, while a British woman and two female aid workers from Spain, abducted from a refugee camp inside Kenya, are also being held across the border.
The incidents caused concern over their impact on the country’s vital tourism industry, with Kenya’s forecast 100 billion shillings or revenue this year expected to falter. The likes of Britain and the United States have already issued warnings against travel to some parts of the country.
Kenyans have so far responded with bravado towards their government’s operation against the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group. Local channels regularly show high approval ratings for the campaign, some as high as 98 percent.
“The issue of our security is non-negotiable,” one commentator told a TV station in the wake of the announcement. Another chipped in with: ”We’ve been casual to the extent of endangering our national sovereignty. Kenya has what it takes to get rid of this dangerous threat once and for all.”
COMMENT
The Kenyan objectives are 1) degrade the ability of the
Al-Shabaab to conduct random raids on Kenyan territory; for too long
they have underestimated Kenya’s ability to react militarily. 2) the
other objective is to establish a buffer region in the geographical area
called Jubaland and this is a reason why the Ogadeni clan who inhabit
this region are welcoming of this incursion as they nurse ambitions of
their own state much like Somaliland and Puntland.
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