Small Wars Journal

After Attack, Kenya Vows to Step Up Antiterror Efforts

Sat, 01/19/2019 - 4:22am

After Attack, Kenya Vows to Step Up Antiterror Efforts by Nicholas Bariyo – Wall Street Journal

Stepping in front of the cameras in the wake of this week’s deadly siege of a Nairobi hotel and office complex, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta pledged to finally root out the Somalia-based militants who had claimed the attack.

 

“We as a country are ready to deal with any threat to our nation,” Mr. Kenyatta said. “We will continue taking every step to make our nation inhospitable to terrorist groups and their networks.”

 

That has proved a daunting task, and Mr. Kenyatta provided scant details for achieving it beyond saying Kenya would invest more resources in strengthening its security and justice systems.

 

For more than a decade, al-Shabaab, an Islamist insurgency with close ties to al Qaeda, has eluded a U.S.-backed military campaign that draws troops from five different East African countries, including Kenya.

This week’s 18-hour rampage at Nairobi’s 14 Riverside complex, claiming the lives of 20 civilians and a policeman, was the latest attack by al-Shabaab, which last year killed more people in Africa than any other terrorist group, according to the Washington-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies…

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