NAIROBI, Kenya — The Kenyan military stormed into Somalia<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/somalia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>on Sunday, sending hundreds of troops to battle the Shabab<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/al-shabab/index.html?inline=nyt-org>militant group and becoming the latest East African country to be dragged into Somalia’s intractable anarchy.
Ethiopia occupied much of Somalia in 2007, and thousands of Ugandan and Burundian troops are stationed there now, serving as African Union peacekeepers trying to shore up Somalia’s weak transitional government. Those countries have a history of civil war and relatively active armies, while Kenya is known for its mild foreign policy and is one of the few nations in the region that has never been led by a military man.
According to Kenyan security officials, several hundred Kenyan soldiers crossed into Somalia in a column of armored trucks and tanks, backed by helicopters, which have begun to bomb and strafe Shabab positions. More Kenyan soldiers are apparently on their way.
“They’re going all the way to Kismayo,” said one Kenyan security official,
referring to a Shabab-controlled port
city<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/world/africa/25iht-somalia.2926009.html>in
southern Somalia. “We’re going to clear the Shabab out.”
A Somali military commander said warplanes carried out airstrikes on Shabab bases in southern Somalia, Reuters reported, but he could not confirm that the aircraft were Kenyan.
The Shabab are a ruthless insurgent group; they have pledged allegiance to
Al Qaeda and have become masters of suicide bombs, slaughtering countless
civilians in their own country and scores of pub-goers in
Uganda<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/world/africa/13uganda.html>in
July 2010, apparently as a reprisal for Uganda’s involvement in
Somalia.
Many Kenyans are now concerned that the Shabab may try to kill Kenyans or
some of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who flock to see the country’s
fabled wildlife parks each year.
“It worries me,” said John Githongo, a political analyst and former Kenyan government official.
A Shabab attack is “overdue, to be very grimly honest,” he said, adding that Kenya’s decision to wade into Somalia was only going to raise the risks.
The Kenyan government has justified its actions, blaming the Shabab
for a recent
string of kidnappings of
Westerners<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/world/africa/kidnappers-again-target-europeans-in-kenya.html>in
Kenya. On Saturday, George Saitoti, Kenya’s internal security
minister,
announced that Kenyan forces would begin hitting back, even though many
analysts have said that the kidnappings were not the work of the Shabab but
of Somali bandits and
pirates<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/piracy_at_sea/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>.
“Our territorial integrity is threatened,” Mr. Saitoti said. “It means we are now going to pursue the enemy, who are the Al-Shabab, to wherever they will be.”
Kenyan security forces have intervened in Somalia before, back in the 1960s, when Somalia tried to foment an uprising in the ethnic Somali parts of Kenya along the border. More recently, the Kenyan Army, which is trained by British and American advisers, has been aiding Somali militias along the border <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/world/africa/10somalia.html> in an effort to push back the Shabab, who control much of southern Somalia, and create a buffer zone. Occasionally, small contingents of Kenyan troops have crossed into Somalia, though the maneuvers were usually covert, with the government covering up casualties.
But Mr. Githongo and others could not remember a time when Kenyan forces had so overtly intervened in a neighboring country.
“There’s no precedent,” Mr. Githongo said.
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