al-Shebab failed to humble the government of President Kenyatta. This is likely to put greater pressure on it within Somalia where the African Union forces could profitably go after the terrorists.
The Kenyan government and its security forces deserve to be congratulated for having ended the terrorist siege of the upmarket Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in something like 96 hours flat. A Mumbai-like attack by heavily-armed terrorists is not easy to deal with. In the Kenyan case, fighters of the Al Qaeda-linked Somali outfit al-Shebab were reportedly armed with machine-guns and AK-47 rifles and had taken ordinary shoppers hostage. This is a most difficult situation to be in for any government as we know from our own experience in India.
The assault on the Nairobi mall can be seen as a sign of desperation by al-Shebab, although it appears to have bested its most prominent internal rival faction whose leader is in government custody. Since 2006, when the Wahhabi outfit emerged from Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts, which ran kangaroo courts against opponents, it has lost overall influence although it continues to hold rural areas in southern Sudan through the use of terror. It has long lost control of Mogadishu, the capital, and was dispossessed of the key port city of Kishmayo a year ago.
Somali Muslims follow the Sufi traditions in the main and al-Shebab’s Wahhabi creed is out of sync with this. Nevertheless, since much of Somalia is ungoverned spaces, there is every possibility of international Al Qaeda fighters gravitating towards it to set up base through the hospitality of a group like al-Shebab, as they did in Afghanistan once with the help of the Pakistanis.
Kenyan troops had assisted the UN-backed Somali government and helped chase out al-Shebab from Kishmayo. In a statement after the end of the siege on Tuesday, a spokesman of the terrorist outfit said it had mounted an attack in Nairobi as it wanted to take revenge against the Kenyans for helping Mogadishu, and particularly mentioned its ouster from the port city. With the element of surprise being on their side, terrorists can attack most targets. But in this instance al-Shebab failed to humble the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta. This is likely to put greater pressure on it within Somalia where the African Union forces, assisting the government, could profitably go after the terrorists.
India has some interest in the Kenyan attack. This is not only because three Indians were killed but also because the attackers were reported to be conversing in English. Although al-Shebab has denied it, some British and American fighters were also thought to be part of the attack team. This directs attention to Pakistan which has traditionally been the training ground of mercenary gangs that were networked to the outfit founded by Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan two years ago.
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