The Washington Post has an interesting article today summing up reactions to a flurry of recent U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts in Kenya. August 7 was the 10-year anniversary of the terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam that killed more than 250 people. Kenyan authorities (and FBI agents) had hoped earlier this month to apprehend Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, considered by many the chief organizer of the Nairobi attack. A series of raids by Kenyan officials failed, however, prompting criticism of both the effectiveness and evenhandedness of the government's response to the threat of international terrorism. Many of those in Kenya's 10% Muslim minority feel unfairly targeted by security measures.
Ali-Amin Kimathi, chairman of Kenya's Muslim Human Rights Forum, suggested that Kenyan counterterrorism officials exaggerated the recent threat to justify continued U.S. funding. "They want to create the impression that Fazul has a huge network in Kenya so they can merit more resources."
Other civil society leaders warned that the recent escalation in surveillance and targeted raids are part of a broader pattern of ineffective U.S.-driven counterterrorism policy that only excaerbates tension in the region. "The pursuit of these four suspects [Fazul and three others] has had a huge impact in the Horn of Africa," said Ali Said, director of the Center for Peace and Democracy, based in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. "They always say, 'We almost found him!' But then they don't find him. After a decade, they are still after these suspects, still bombing the wrong places, killing cows and camels and herders and arresting the wrong people. . . . The whole community is paying the price."
Since 2006, the U.S. has carried out half a dozen airstrikes in Somalia, killing and injuring many civilians, but only one confirmed target, In spring 2007, the Associated Press and Human Rights Watch issued reports describing secret detention and interrogation programs that U.S. and Kenyan security forces were collaborating on for suspected international terrorists. From the Post:
Though hundreds of Kenyans have been arrested on suspicion of terrorist
activities, only one has been successfully tried in court, [Kimathi] said. At
least 85 people from 17 countries, including 15 Kenyan citizens, have
been sent to Ethiopia without charge or access to lawyers, and many say
they have been tortured in Kenyan and Ethiopian custody. As of late
last year, at least 40 were still being held in Ethiopia, a key U.S.
ally in the region. One Kenyan citizen has been transferred to the U.S.
military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga attempted to straddle the line between appearing tough on security and fair towards Kenya's Muslims last week, when commemorating the 1998 Nairobi bombing. "Let me also assure Kenyans we will never
scapegoat any particular community. We take solace from the fact that
none of the three attacks was committed by a Kenyan," he said. "To
scapegoat any section of our people or to disregard our laws in pursuit
of suspects would in fact generate the very disaffection and extremism
on which terror and terrorists thrive."
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