Dusit

During January, Nairobi experienced a rather significant terrorist attack at a prominent hotel. It made national news. I happened to be in Nairobi at the time (an increasingly rare occurrence during a typical work week), planning to go to Mogadishu the next day. I was sitting in my office when I heard what sounded like an explosion. The reason I say "sounded like" is that being in a noisy urban area, there are frequent loud noises, some resembling things like gunfire and/or explosions and one often never knows if it is or if it is something else. I feel like after several years in Burundi I became pretty adept at picking out the sound of gunfire, grenades and so forth. But in an urban setting, the sound can bounce back and forth off of buildings, distorting it from how it originally sounded. It also makes it hard to tell where it's coming from. Can't imagine how crazy and disturbing urban warfare must be. In any case, being in Mogadishu so much I've heard quite a bit of such noise as well. Admittedly, and thankfully, Nairobi has considerably less.

The first indication that what I heard was significant was when my phone began to light up with security messages. My heart sank as it gradually became clear that it was likely a significant terrorist attack. At first I received a text suggesting that it was possibly a bank robbery. Later a call and multiple texts confirmed that it was an attack at the Dusit hotel and that it was still ongoing. In fact it began in the middle of the afternoon and would drag on until the next morning.

To be honest, we’ve sort of been expecting something like this for some time. We’ve heard rumors over the past couple of years that some fairly significant attacks have foiled by police and the security teams of potential targets like shopping malls, hotels and so forth. But since the big attack on the Westgate Mall back in September 2013, most people I know have anticipated another one to come.

Why Kenya?

It does beg the question as to why. The stated claims as to why terrorists target Kenya are attributed to their passion for global jihad and to pressure the Kenyan government to remove its troops from Somalia. But, an article I read recently says that evidence suggests that it is also driven by different strategic concerns and highly rational reasons. According to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), attacks in Kenya go back to May 2008. They recorded 14 attacks before September 2011, 49 in 2012, 35, in 2013, 80 in 2014, 42 in 2015, and 45 in 2016. Evidence shows that of the 302 cross-border attacks perpetrated from 2008-2016, 3 occurred in Ethiopia, 5 in Uganda, 2 in Djibouti and 291 in Kenya. In another recent article I read, the authors argue that beyond sharing a border with Somalia, terrorists target Kenya more than other frontline states because of the opportunity linked to Kenya’s international status and visibility, its relative free and independent media that widely publicizes terrorist attacks, a highly developed and lucrative tourism sector that provides soft targets, expanding democratic space and high levels of corruption. In sum, these variables provide motivation and assist in the planning and execution of acts that aim to fulfill the terrorists’ quest to survive and maintain relevance on the global stage. 

According to these article, these attacks over the past several years made international headlines and this visibility serves to attract the attention of terrorist financiers, potential recruits and allies. As Kenya offers an array of convenient targets, this is likely to continue. For its part, the Kenyan government has made considerable strides in fending off such attacks. It's hard to know how much given that this information normally is not made public but intel has been a big part of their successes. 

The Scapegoat

The one thing that crops up periodically is the potential that Somali refugees in Kenya (and there are many) are increasingly summarily targeted in government crackdowns, resulting in overarching changes to refugee policy. Though there is evidence of considerable illicit activity in the camps, and security-related arrests have been made, refugees can be used by politicians because they are easy targets. Singling out perpetrators is one thing but demonizing the entire group is not only unfair, it can fuel the very fire they're supposedly trying to put out. We saw this in Tanzania many years ago where refugees were blamed for criminality throughout the country as the government wanted to be seen to be taking action. The forced closure of camps was used as a political move and statistically had no effect on the level of crime. Governments continue to take such draconian measures regardless of whether it is supported by any evidence. Some would say this applies to the situation in Tanzania even now. I suppose this applies to the US and other countries as well. 

In any case, there's no easy answer to either the terrorist threat or the long-standing refugee situation. Hopefully authorities will resist the temptation to irrationally conflate the two issues. 

"I'm not afraid of the bullet with my name on it, but I don't want to be killed by the one that says 'to whom it may concern'.” Mohamed Amin, Kenyan photo-journalist