The militants who struck at the heart of Nairobi could scarcely have picked a target that would attract more international attention than the Westgate Shopping Mall, The Guardian reported on Sunday.
Nairobi is the transport and commercial hub of east and central Africa. It is also home to dozens of diplomats, including many posted at the United Nations complex in the city, which is the only UN headquarters duty station in the developing world.
The Mall – 15 minutes’ drive from the UN headquarters – is where well-off Kenyans and many expatriates spend their weekends. With its air-conditioned shops and themed restaurants, it attracts a multicultural crowd of shoppers and, by picking midday on Saturday as the time of their attack, the assailants aimed to maximise casualties.
In her book on the anti-corruption crusader John Githongo, British author Michela Wrong offered a detailed description of The Mall to describe inequalities in Kenyan society although her depiction could also be read as defining why an attacker aiming to maximise Western casualties would have picked that target. “Open seven days a week, extending over two storeys and boasting motorised shopping trolleys for the disabled, its shelves offered everything from dog muzzles to mattresses, artificial flowers to birthday cards, nappies to dishwashers. Slicing Parma ham and handling French cheese takes certain skills; [supermarket] staff had been taught them and they had been drilled to the point where they could recite the precise location of key products without a moment’s hesitation.”
The fact Kenya is a close Western ally and attracts thousands of tourists annually besides being home to dozens of diplomats and expatriates has made it a favourite target of militants. Long before the 9/11 attacks in New York and the 7 July bombings in London, al Qaeda terrorists killed more than 200 people in the US embassy bombing in downtown Nairobi on 7 August 1998. Kenya subsequently became one of the key partners of the US and Britain in the war against militants in the Horn of Africa. The country’s troops crossed the border into Somalia in an operation against al Shabaab militants who had launched several attacks within Kenyan borders in October 2011. Reports from witnesses caught up in the attack on The Mall indicated the assailants identified themselves as affiliated to al Shabaab and some said they were acting in response to the military operation in Somalia. “Kenya went to Somalia and killed our people. We have come to revenge,” one witness, Abdul Jamal, reported the attackers as saying.
Kenyan and African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi have recorded significant success in their fight against al Shabaab. For the first time since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, major cities such as Mogadishu and Kismayu are witnessing significant reconstruction efforts after militants were pushed out of those cities. But the repeated attacks within the borders of the troop-contributing countries, including this attack and the June 2010 bombing of football fans watching the World Cup final in the Ugandan capital Kampala, shows a major weakness in the strategy against al Shabaab and its affiliates.
While Kenya, for example, boasts a highly trained and professional army which earned plaudits for its mission to push al Shabaab out of the port city of Kismayu, the police and immigration services in the country are viewed as corrupt. In repeated public surveys, the police force is ranked by ordinary Kenyans as the most corrupt institution in the country. Efforts to improve it must be incorporated into any strategy to stop the activities of militants in countries such as Kenya. While the military has applied a squeeze on al Shabaab in Somalia, the internal security forces appear unable to cope with militants operating within Kenya.
The world must also realise that in today’s interconnected universe, the effect of having a failed state such as Somalia on the doorstep can be felt far away from its borders. Numerous militants of British and American birth have been reported as crossing from Kenya into Somalia for the last five years. One day, they could attack far beyond the country’s borders.
The need to rebuild a functional state in Somalia and to support the new authorities in Somalia is more urgent now than it has ever been.
