A crowd looks at a scene following the night attack of June 15, 2014 in Mpeketoni, Lamu that left more than 48 people dead. PHOTO | AFP
Harakat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahedeen, the bandit group fleeing from the fierce Kenya Defence Forces in Somalia, must be reeling in shock and going crazy with frustration after this week’s events.
Just when they thought they could come to East and Central Africa’s citadel of democracy and free speech for a spot of publicity following the murder of 57 people in Lamu’s Mpeketoni area, President Kenyatta has cut off their air supply.
Publicity, said one famous general, is the oxygen on which terrorism survives.
The President’s statement denying Al-Shabaab credit for the Mpeketoni massacre must gall them to the core given that they had already started issuing statements to international media claiming responsibility and issuing new threats.
Since last year’s attack on Westgate Shopping Mall, in which 67 people of various nationalities were killed, Al-Shabaab has made a habit of claiming responsibility for every explosion, death and injury.
They have claimed responsibility for attacks on passenger service vehicles, markets and even personal cars exploding in police compounds.
They have taken credit for murders in churches and bars as well as the killing of moderate imams. In that time, their reputation has grown in leaps and bounds from a ragtag militia to a dreaded ally of al-Qaeda with an alleged memorandum of understanding with the Mombasa Republican Council.
Al-Shabaab is so publicity-hungry that it was just a matter of time before the group started taking credit for normal cholera deaths in Kenya.
DENYING AL-SHABAAB CREDIT
Such is Al-Shabaab’s renown that it has convinced the National Intelligence Service to start cooking reports linking it to imminent attacks. In the instant case, the group had let NIS know three days before the Mpeketoni killings that it planned a high-scale attack.
Given the distance between Mogadishu, where the Al-Shabaab are confined, and Lamu, the horrendous road from Garsen through Witu and into Mpeketoni, and the distance from the ocean, it is possible that anybody else but the group could have designed such an attack. Just because some of the attackers claimed to be Al-Shabaab does not make them so.
Since finding the killers and naming them will not bring the dead back to life, it is important to think long and hard about how Kenya can use this tragedy to rally its citizens together.
For far too long, Kenya’s leadership and media have been excessively generous in breathing life into Al-Shabaab. The more credit the group has taken for killings in Kenya, the more influential it has grown around the world — raising funds and recruiting people. It is possible that Al-Shabaab was not even involved in the Westgate siege.
By precluding the group’s involvement in the Mpeketoni attacks, the President has hit Al-Shabaab where it hurts the most. Deliberately denying Al-Shabaab credit for any deaths, injuries and explosions that occur in Kenya — especially when it rushes to claim responsibility to the world media — will expose the group as consisting of liars destined for ignominy.
The Western media cannot purport to know who is killing Kenyans unless they are in the conspiracy. The conflicting signals reaching Al-Shabaab will drive its leadership into a permanent state of anxiety.
Since no one is likely to face criminal charges, Cord leader Raila Odinga and his associates in the opposition should be a sport on the Mpeketoni issue and take one for the team.
His repeated denials of involvement is neither patriotic nor is it supportive of the long-term strategic interests of Kenya, which will see Al-Shabaab die a natural death, starved of the oxygen of media publicity.
kwamchetsi@formandcontent.co.ke
Source: Daily Nation
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