Armed and insecure

them. 355 A few days later, 36 workers in a Mandera quarry were murdered. 356
Possibly the most tragic attack—and Al-Shabaab’s largest strike—came in April 2015, when 147
people, mostly students reportedly targeted for being Christian, were massacred by four gunmen
at Garissa University in Kenya’s northeast. Despite a siege of over 12 hours, the security forces’
response was once again heavily criticised. 357 The brutal attack was “among the three most
deadly terrorist attacks on educational targets on record since 1970” worldwide. 358 The purported
mastermind of the attack, Mohamed Kuno, who had reportedly since defected from Al-Shabaab
with 1,200 fighters to join a pro-ISIS faction, was killed in Somalia in May 2016. 359
Almost five years on, it would appear that early criticisms of Kenya’s intervention in Somalia—its
haste in preparation (mainly in response to kidnappings of foreigners), lack of proper strategy
and international support, shifting goals and ignorance of the potential blowback—were
vindicated: “involvement in Somalia was partly motivated by a desire to inoculate North Eastern
Province from the chaos across its border, ease a huge refugee burden and curtail the radical
influence of Al-Shabaab, but the unintended consequences may prove destabilising”. 360
Indeed, it is quite feasible that rather than protecting Kenyan citizens, involvement in Somalia
has brought upon them higher levels of violence, as the border “is now the soft underbelly in the
war against Al-Shabaab [...] part of its strategy is to outflank the KDF and wage a low-intensity
guerrilla campaign [...] behind Kenyan lines”. 361 In fact, the blowback has spread geographically,
with attacks in the following locations in 2014: Mandera (19 attacks), Nairobi (nine), Mombasa
(nine), Garissa (seven), and Wajir (five). 362 Now entrenched, Al-Shabaab threatens to further
ignite ethnic and political conflicts in Kenya. 363
355 BBC, ‘Kenya bus attack: Military kills 100 Shabab militants’, November 2014, www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30167891.
356 The Guardian, ‘Al-Shabaab militants kill 36 Christian quarry workers in Kenya’, December 2014, www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/02/kenya-quarrymassacre-leaves-36-dead-says-red-cross.
357 BBC, ‘Kenya attack: 147 dead in Garissa University assault’, April 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32169080; Voice of America, ‘Threat Remains
One Year After Garissa University Terror Attack’, www.voanews.com/content/threat-remains-one-year-after-garissa-university-terror-attack/3262900.html.
358 START, ‘Al-Shabaab Attack on Garissa University in Kenya’, www.start.umd.edu/pubs/STARTBackgroundReport_alShabaabGarissaU_April2015.pdf.
359 The Star, ‘Garissa massacre mastermind Mohammed Kuno killed -Juba security minister’, June 2016, www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/06/01/garissamassacre-mastermind-mohammed-kuno-killed-juba-security_c1361824.
360 ICG, ‘The Kenyan Military Intervention in Somalia’, February 2012, www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/horn-of-africa/kenya/184%20-%20The%20
Kenyan%20Military%20Intervention%20in%20Somalia.pdf.
361 Ibid.
362 START, ‘Al-Shabaab Attack on Garissa University in Kenya’, www.start.umd.edu/pubs/STARTBackgroundReport_alShabaabGarissaU_April2015.pdf.
363 “Al-Shabaab has kept its promise to bring the war to Kenya, whether by its own hand or local affiliates and by sowing divisions in a nation still not at ease
with itself. Its intent is two-fold: to put pressure on the government’s continued deployment with AMISOM in southern Somalia by hitting targets that directly
affect the financial interests of the middle ‘political’ class and divide them; and meanwhile insert cells and trained fighters into locations with pre-existing
grievances and patterns of violence that the authorities have historically struggled to address and contain”, ICG, ‘Kenya: Al-Shabaab – Closer to Home’,
September 2014,
www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/horn-of-africa/kenya/b102-kenya-al-shabaab-closer-to-home.
PAX ! Armed and insecure
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