Rise of ISIS should prompt rethink of Kenya’s strategy against terrorism

Monday, November 23, 2015

Somali Al-Shabaab fighters in Elasha Biyaha on February 13, 2012. The Islamist militants have been considering joining the Islamic State and pledging allegiance to its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. FILE PHOTO | MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB | AFP

advertisements

An important story has been simmering in the background in Somalia in recent weeks.

The militants of Al-Shabaab have been wrestling with this question: Should we or should we not join the so-called Islamic State and pledge allegiance to its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

Opinion is split. The main leadership of the group remains loyal to Al-Qaeda. But younger members have been demanding that Shabaab should join ISIS.

In the last few days, a small faction in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland pledged allegiance to ISIS.

The prominent Shabaab-affiliated cleric Sheikh Hassaan Hussein is among those that have asked the Shabaab leadership to declare Somalia a wilayat (district) of the Islamic State.

ISIS EXPLOITS

All this matters for obvious reasons. The terrible massacre on the streets of Paris, the bombing of a Russian jet and the twin suicide attacks in Beirut, Lebanon — all in a matter of a few days — illustrate just how big a danger the militants of ISIS are.

Unlike al-Qaeda, the ISIS fellows don’t bother aiming for symbolic targets such as American embassies.

Instead, they believe it is simply enough to make the “blood of disbelievers flow” as one of the Paris attackers is seen boasting in a video before the killings.

If al-Shabaab pledges allegiance to ISIS, it is very possible that the group will adopt even more indiscriminate and bloody methods than it has in the past.

A partnership with ISIS might also trigger a flood of recruits from abroad and open a pipeline of funds.

Of course, it is also possible to exaggerate what the impact of affiliation with ISIS may be because it was precisely the adoption of ISIS-style indiscriminate suicide bombings by its former leader Ahmed Abdi Godane which severely diminished the group’s support and eventually led to its ouster from major urban centres in Somalia.

KENYA'S POLICY RESPONSE

Still, Kenyan policymakers must seriously confront the question. What should the country’s role be in what is shaping up to be a major global battle between a determined, savvy, bloodthirsty group of militants in ISIS and their primary enemies, the West?

Some will say Kenya must play its role and continue prosecuting the war against the Shabaab in Somalia.

My view on this is shaped by the question a professor in London posed, which sent the whole class into silence.

Would terrorism exist if superpowers did not exist?

It was a veiled reference to the fact that the principal grievances of groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS seem to be tied to the policies of the major global powers in the Middle East and the presence of their armies there.

KENYA'S SELF-INTEREST SHOULD PREVAIL

It seems to me the wisest option for Kenya in this battle that is hard to understand and whose outcome and cost is indeterminate is to act in its own best self-interest and sit out the war.

It is striking now when travelling across Africa that airport security at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is tighter than in most African countries including Ethiopia.

There is an inescapable feeling of envy seeing that other countries on the continent do not have the same level of endless security searches that you see in Kenya now and which were mostly absent before 2011.

It is unclear how exactly it advances Kenya’s interests to stay in Somalia indefinitely.

Tightening border controls and urging the superpowers to support other armies to hold Kismayu and stop the Shabaab from establishing a foothold in southern Somalia might be a better option.

This may sound defeatist but then Chinua Achebe told us that the coward watches the funeral of his brave neighbour from the dung heap in his compound.

Kenya has no business playing a role in this war between the West and its enemies in Syria and Iraq whose cost may be too high for a small, service based economy with weak security services to bear.

Home
Email

Hiiraan Online