THIS IS WHY WE ARE A SOFT TARGET FOR AL SHABAB

In a single day of brazen and senseless killing, we have lost 147 innocent bright young lives. Lives whose only mistake was seeking a bright future for themselves and their country. If the magnitude of this attack is yet to register in your mind, please just close your eyes and count 1..2…3..4…5  to 147. It is just mind boggling and devastating. The attack was claimed and bears all the hallmarks of the militant group Alshabab.

Alshabab are cowards. They always go for soft targets. Targets that are innocent and defenseless. If they are men enough, they would have attacked the military barrack that is less than 2kms from the university. But they won’t although it seems the entire country called Kenya is now a soft target for them. We need to ask why always us? We have lost count of the number of attacks and lives lost .Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti and many other countries have troops in Somalia. But these countries are safe. Only Uganda had one attack in 2010 and none since then. Even attacks in Somalia are currently small scaled and far apart.

Ethiopia is an interesting case Study. In my view,everything held constant they would have borne the brunt of Alshabab attacks. Ethiopia played a direct role in the creation of Alshabab. They invaded Somalia and uprooted the Islamic courts union from power. The ICU was effective in restoring some semblance of normalcy in Somalia and was peaceful. Alshabab was a member of this union and consisted mainly of young, violence inclined chaps. However, they were subdued within the larger group. Once the ICU disintegrated, Alshabab splintered and became independent to pursue its violent tendencies and lust for power.

 Ethiopia has troops in Somalia and constantly conducts incursions in to Somalia. Somalia and Ethiopia have been perpetual enemies long before the colonial era and to date. Majority of Somalis habour long held grievances against Ethiopia and attacking her would have given the Alshabab some base support within the Somalis. There are many insurgencies within Ethiopia. The oromo rebels, the ethnic Somali ONLF and the Amahras are all seeking either independence or the toppling of the minority Tigre led government.

All these factors are ingredients for Alshabab to target Ethiopia. But they can’t because they know better. Ethiopia is a very bad country to benchmark ourselves against but on this Alshabab menace we must learn something from them. So what are we doing wrong that others are doing right? Here are my views.

We have not invested in homeland security- to understand this better; we need to know that it is not only militant groups that attack us. Kenya is the hub for all manner of crimes; the conduit for drug and human traffickers, a safe haven for smugglers and international fugitives, criminal gangs freely roam our streets. It is just that we don’t count but the number of innocent lives lost at the hands of armed criminal gangs by far surpasses those that we have lost at the hands of terror groups. The world over, more emphasis is placed on the welfare of police officers; in terms of their working conditions, their training and motivation. There is need to create elite groups that deal with emerging threats and situations that are beyond the capabilities of the regular police. We are all aware of how helpful the GSU Recce Company has been in both yesterday attack and the Westgate siege. They are professional, swift and well trained. They do their work and retreat to their bases avoiding the limelight. How about devolving the Recce squad to the attack prone areas? Yesterday, they had to come from Nairobi. We have invested more in the army who are only trained to combat an external enemy. That is why they move in with tanks in a hostage situation. The tanks are used to flatten an entire enemy position. It is not their mistake that is how they have been trained. The regular police are ill-equipped, poorly trained, de-motivated and paid peanuts. That is why we saw them lying on their bellies outside the university wall while the murderers were systematically slaughtering more students.

Prevention is better than cure- pre-emptying an attack is more effective than dealing with a deadly situation. What happened to intelligence gathering which is the hallmark of any effective policing? Apart from telling citizens security starts with you, what are we doing to make this one real? If the president himself can dismiss intelligence out rightly without counter checking with other external agencies what will make a mere citizen report anything to the police and be taken seriously? A few weeks ago, there were reports in the public domain that Alshabab planned to target a university in Kenya. Was it left at that? Now that it has come to pass, who sat on that report?

Many times we hear the locals do not cooperate with the police in identifying criminals but has the government put in place mechanisms for doing so? The police are still hostile to citizens. Many clerics who have openly opposed Alshabab have been killed by the group. I know many Somali clerics who have tried to counter the Alshabab ideology but who live in perpetual fear now. The government has done nothing to ensure their security. What people outside Northern Kenya do not know is that openly opposing the Alshabab is suicidal because they will come after you and the government will do nothing to help you.

For lack of proper intelligence, Alshabab is always a head of our security apparatus. In fact it seems Alshabab intelligence gathering is more effective than ours. They choose their targets, survey and act so brazenly. No force, no weapon can be effective without proper intelligence gathering mechanism.

We don’t learn from our mistakes- Once beaten twice shy. This has not been the case. We mourn a few days and then forget. This collective amnesia will kill us. We only plan in the shortest run. Whenever something happens, we engage in Knee-jerk reactions that do more harm than good. What happened to long and effective planning? Why can’t we put in place long term measures? Somali security is wiser these days and has learnt a lot on how to deal with the Alshabab. The attack on the Maka Al mukaram hotel is a case in point. Security officers stormed the place in the shortest time possible and in the process averted carnage. We have been attacked countless times and we ought to be wiser on how to deal with these situations by now.

Knee-jerk reactions would not take us anywhere. Yesterday, police were arresting those without ID’s in Garissa while the siege was ongoing, a curfew was imposed for 10 days and a kshs 20 million bounty placed on the master mind. But are these the only possible measures? Why a curfew for 10 days? Does anyone thing Alshabab will be foolish enough to attack again in those 10 days? They always wait for us to forget. We were told to look for the mastermind and report him to the nearest police station. How do we do that? This guy is not your common criminal who lives amongst us and roams the streets. He is armed and lives in the bush or Alshabab strongholds in Somalia. May be our army should look for him. That would be effective. We need to sit down and come up with a paradigm shift in how we tackle the insecurity in the country.

We have a radar less leadership- our leadership is clueless. I was surprised to hear the interior CS declare an operation that claimed the lives of 147 lives a success. Was it a success because it ended? The president and his deputy were officiating conferences the whole day. Decent governments cancel all engagement whether local or international to deal with the situation at hand. We get the usual utterances of my government this and that. We have an opposition that opposes anything under the radar. They have taken opposition in its literal meaning. We are the leadership we get.

To ensure our government acts, we must all play constructive activists. A single praise singer and sycophant will dilute our collective efforts.We must say enough of the empty talk, something must be done. URGENTLY. Let the blood of those innocent lives not go in vain. Let their blood at least push us to act and save other lives.