Why East Africa Remains Soft Target for Al Shabaab

By Eunice kilonzo

Al Shabaab this year made it clear it will strike all over East Africa. Before the July 2010 Kampala terrorist attack, an Al Shabaab spokesman had announced strikes in Uganda, Burundi and Kenya. More than a year later, hundreds of Kenyan troops crossed into Somalia to pursue al-Shabaab fighters.

“Fighters from Al-Shabaab will attack Kenya unless it withdraws its troops from Somalia”, a spokesman for the group has warned. However, these threats and subsequent attacks are the tip of the iceberg of a larger problem: Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda seeks new sanctuaries in unstable African nations and the continent’s disparate armed Islamist groups may forge closer ties under the Al-Qaeda umbrella. Instability in this case could be as a result of ethnic, economic as well as religious rifts.

“Al-Qaeda traditionally has taken advantage of areas that are wracked by conflict, turmoil and lack of government. It is a safe haven they seek to launch attacks,” said John Brennan, U.S. President Barack Obama’s top anti-terrorism official.

Following this backdrop, the East Africa region should be wary of the enemy within and the need to advance measures by nation states to avert or counter offensives from this ruthless group. Sadly, Kenya has been a ‘perfect’ breeding ground for terrorists and suicide bombers because it has the two ingredients that make recruitment to terrorist organizations so attractive – a high unemployment rate among youth and widespread corruption. Furthermore, highlighting the new face of al Shabaab such as that of Elgiva Bwire Oliacha convicted for terrorism crimes. The problem is heightened by the culture of impunity that is pervasive among our leadership. This further shows the link between government corruption and the growth of home-grown terrorism. For corruption, incompetence and lack of respect for ordinary citizens are the conditions under which terrorism thrives.

To begin with, Somalia has been without a stable government since 1991 and is currently led by a weak government that is largely confined to the capital Mogadishu, therefore an ideal vacuum to be filled by Al-Qaeda. The country since its independence from Italy is wounded by civil war, famine, terrorism and corrupt incompetent regimes that have descended into clan factional fighting, war-induced famine and - most recently - the ascent to power in most of the south of the country of al Shabaab, which American and other intelligence agencies believe is linked to the al-Qaida terrorist group.

“Somalia is one of the most challenging areas of the world because it has this internal conflict, it has such a devastating famine, and it is an area that al-Qaeda has tried regularly to exploit,” Brennan added.

Al Shabaab has taken a great step towards becoming Al Qaeda's East Africa regional member cell. The increasingly extremist Islamist group has been involved in the killing of aid workers in independent but unrecognized Somaliland and is reported to have participated in attacks on government forces in Ethiopia's Ogaden region.

And the terrorism targets are not picked accidentally. Uganda is a major contributor of troops to the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) and a firm pro-Western ally of Al Shabaab arch enemy Ethiopia. Thus evident in their attacks as one of the two targets was Kampala's "Ethiopian Village" restaurant, popular with foreigners. In addition, Burundi was threatened by Al Shabaab and Kenya is currently smoking out the al Shabaab insurgents as well as their sympathizers.

There is therefore no doubt that Al Shabaab has taken its terror campaign to the entire East African region, with its main targets being Somalia, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Uganda, Burundi and now Kenya. This is because; Al Qaeda seemingly aims at using Al Shabaab to transform East Africa into yet another front in its global terror campaign.

Kenya in the past few weeks has been fairly successful in rooting out Al Qaeda groups from its territory as well as within Somalia, with Uganda and Burundi, being able to draw upon help from their East African Community neighbours with substantial success. Even Ethiopia has been successful in reducing Somali extremist activities on their territories. Sudan, a country that had contacts with Al Qaeda in the 1990s, is by now strongly repressing any extremist groups. However, Eritrea according to recent reports, is said to have provided Al Shabaab with arms to help fight Kenya which hampers the efforts against a common enemy, al Shabaab.

This rise of terror gangs in our societies is one phenomenon which not only poses a strong danger and threat to people’s lives and security and to the consolidation of a more democratic and pluralistic political life but has also reached such an amplitude where terror reigns and solutions have become even more difficult to achieve. This terror menace fans xenophobia especially among Kenyans Vis a Vis the Kenyan Somalis which hinders integration as well as unity among Kenyan citizens. On a larger scale, it threatens the objectives of the East African Community as there lacks complete support towards al Shabaab as portrayed by Eritrea. Peace, unity and security are a foundational condition to an environment conducive to doing business and achieving prosperity in the region. For if East African centre will not be able to hold, things will fall apart.

The East African Community bloc, probably due to its geographical position, is vulnerable to new and emerging security challenges such as climate change and its negative impact on food security and stability in the region. Other challenges are piracy, terrorism, human and illicit drugs trafficking, water and resources scarcity, increasing poverty and unemployment particularly in youth.