Kenya: Nairobi Attack Exposes Flawed U.S. Terror Policies
By Ramy Srour, 24 September 2013
WASHINGTON, Sep 24 2013 (IPS) -In the aftermath of the worst terror attack
in East Africa in three years, foreign policy scholars here are urging the
U.S. government to rethink its counter-terror policy in the region.
As the number of victims rises to 62 in an armed siege that has held dozens
of people hostage in a major mall in uptown Nairobi, many are suggesting
that the Somali Al Shabaab militant organisation, reportedly linked to
Al-Qaeda, may be stronger and better organised than previously thought.
Just over a year ago, joint U.S.-Kenyan forces managed to expel Al Shabaab
from their last stronghold in southern Somalia, leading the U.S. government
to call it a success story for U.S. counter-terror policy. But what has
taken place over the weekend in Nairobi's Westgate Mall could suggest
otherwise.
"This attack should be seen as a call to action," Katherine Zimmermann, of
the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think tank here, told
IPS. "What the attack shows is that the fight against terrorism in Africa
has stagnated and that groups like Al Shabaab are much stronger than the
U.S. administration thought."
In coming days, U.S. policymakers may look anew at their counter-terror
approach, particularly in Kenya, where the government has been a key U.S.
ally.
"What this attack does is strengthen the notion that the region ought not to
be seen solely through the lenses of counter-terrorism, sacrificing other
equally important issues the international community should address," Vanda
Felbab-Brown, an expert on non-traditional security threats at the Brookings
Institution, a think tank here, told IPS.
"Current U.S. counter-terror strategy in the region has focused primarily on
targeted attacks against Al Shabaab, while it should have addressed the
structural causes of their radicalisation."
Felbab-Brown cites high unemployment, a weak Somali economy and widespread
corruption as the main reasons behind the radicalisation of youths that have
joined Al Shabaab. U.S. counter-terror efforts, she says, have devoted
little or no attention to these issues.
The U.S. government delivered a total of 445 million dollars in security aid
to Somalia between 2008 and 2011, almost 50 percent of total U.S. aid to the
country during that period. What seems to be missing from the U.S. strategy,
Felbab-Brown says, is "a real effort to improve the Somali economy and urge
the government to foster a broader political inclusion of these youth".
Few analysts would suggest that the issue of counter-terrorism should be
left off the agenda in East Africa entirely. But experts in Washington are
increasingly urging that U.S. strategy include concrete efforts aimed at
strengthening civil society and rebuilding the Somali judiciary system,
which remains dysfunctional following decades of civil war.
Following the attack, the U.S. government immediately promised to aid the
Kenyan government in the aftermath of the attack.
"We have offered our assistance to the government of Kenya and stand ready
to help in any way we can," Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.
No surprise
U.S. counter-terrorism involvement in Somalia began in the early 2000s,
during the administration of President George W. Bush. At the time, the U.S.
government sought to help both Somalia and neighbouring Ethiopia to topple
the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which at the time was seeking to replace the
power vacuum in Somalia with an Islamic regime run in accordance with Sharia
law.
Al Shabaab formed during those years as the military wing of the ICU, and it
has since sought to expel "hostile forces" in the region. Yet international
forces, facilitated particularly by the United States, eventually made
significant inroads in the fight against Shabaab militants.
Between 2011 and 2012, the U.S.-backed Kenyan military led a series of
counter-terror strikes inside Somalia that resulted in the ouster of the
group from Kismayo, a key coastal town known for its access to the oil
routes of the Red Sea and Al Shabaab's last stronghold in Somalia.
The U.S. Department of State welcomed Kismayo's liberation as the end of the
battle and greeted the "African Union Mission's (AMISOM) success in driving
the al-Shabaab terrorist organization out of strategically important
population centers" as important achievements for U.S. counter-terror
strategy in the region.
But the group, with a membership estimated at around 5,000 militants, was
never really defeated, its continued strength now underlined by this
weekend's siege of the Nairobi mall. The Westgate attack is just the latest
in a series of retaliatory measures taken by Al Shabaab against its enemies
in East Africa, including a raid against a U.N. compound in June.
"The terrorist attack at Nairobi's Westgate shopping centre was evidently a
retaliation by Al Shabaab for the Kenyan military presence in Somalia since
October 2011, and a deliberate signal that they are still a force to be
reckoned with," James Jennings, president of Conscience International, a
humanitarian aid organisation that worked in Somalia during the 2010-11
famine, said Monday
"It represents a continuation of the violence that has swirled throughout
East Africa in the wake of the disintegration of Somalia, a war now
increasingly being exported across the region's borders."
Other analysts are suggesting that the mall was an attractive target because
Westerners, including those from the U.S., frequented it.