Al Shabaab Without Godane is Still a Big & Even More Dangerous Threat!

When the United States Government confirmed that Ahmed Abdi Godane, the former ruthless leader of Al Shabaab; a surrogate of Al Qaeda in Eastern Africa had been killed in an air strike on the militant’s base on 1^st September 2014, authorities in Kenya reacted to the announcement from Pentagon with glee. President Uhuru Kenyatta was quick to point out that the death of Godane would provide some “form of closure” for the victims of the September 21^st 2013 terrorist attack on Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi.

Abdi Ahmed Godane, former Al Shabaab leader

Godane masterminded the gruesome attack which left 70 people including a relative of President Kenyatta dead and hundreds maimed. However, the death of Godane does not in any way indicate the end of Al Shabaab or a reduction of its extremist agenda and murderous activities in the region. If anything, his killing has created new targets for the militants complicating an already delicate security situation in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti and Burundi; all front-line countries which have contributed troops to the African Union (AU) Mission to Somalia (AMISOM).

Al Shabaab has threatened and considers all United Nations (UN), European Union (UN) and US installations, allied companies and organizations operating in Eastern Africa and in particular in AMISOM troop-contributing countries as legitimate targets. Whereas AMISOM and in particular Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) operating in the southern Somalia have considerably reduced the activities of Al Shabaab they are yet to extinguish the militants. When KDF troops dramatically entered Kismayu in September, 2012 in an amphibious landing formation, the militants did not engage them in battle or offer any serious resistance. Instead, the militia abandoned post and fizzled into the civilian population. Thus the dislodgment of Al Shabaab from Kismayu and their other strongholds in Southern Somalia was essentially a dispersal of combatants from active combat and effective command without proper demobilization.

Remains of vehicles destroyed by militants outside of Mpeketoni

These combatants may have joined other groups loosely allied to or with similar ideology to Al Shabaab. Individual militants or small groups thereof may in fact be responsible for the sporadic deadly attacks attributed to Al Shabaab in several locations in East Africa. Battle hardened militants without a central command are bound to act erratically and in isolation due to frustration. They prefer soft targets where they can inflict maximum pain and damage with low risk of contact with conventional forces. The recent violence in Lamu which left over 100 people dead and the isolated fatal attacks on tourists and security officers in Mombasa and neighbouring coastal towns should be seen in this light.

West-gate ruins after the Al Shabaab attack in September

 

Al Shabaab still controls a large part of Somalia. The AMISOM; U.S. and European Union forces (EUFOR) operating in the Eastern Coast and Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden have not been able to dislodge the militants from many of their strongholds. The extremists still hold vital grounds of tactical importance inside and along the coast of Somalia. The fledgling government in Mogadishu is also too weak to effectively deal with remnants of Al Shabaab in urban and rural civilian settlements. There is still a sizeable population of the Somali people who actively support the militia and believe in their ideology. The militia cannot thrive without such support. The death of Godane has not changed this. It is only but a temporary setback to Al Shabaab. He has been replaced by another extremist Sheikh Ahmad Umar (Abu Ubaidah). There is no vacuum in command and their violent activities have continued inside Somalia. The new leadership will now be more cautious and ruthless. The extremists are angry that their leader has been killed and they will seek to avenge his death. As long as Al Shabaab continues to enjoy some form of support from sections of the Somali population, it will definitely carry out revenge attacks on soft targets inside Somalia and neighbouring countries.

Nairobi City Skyline

All citizens and security agencies of Eastern Africa should be alive to this fact. Kenya which has a long and largely unmanned frontier with Somalia and easily corruptible immigration; border control and security officers is the most susceptible to revenge attacks. Al Shabaab has constantly threatened to bring down the symbols of capitalism; skyscrapers and shopping malls in Kenya. This calls for heightened surveillance in all densely populated cities in Kenya and neighbouring countries which host institutions and installations associated with the USA, UN and the EU. One hopes that security agencies in the region will not be caught napping!

Twitter: @DeCaptainCFE

KENYAN CASES AT THE HAGUE: ICC & ICTR; History is Repeating itself

In 1998 I was working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR), Branch Office; Nairobi, as an Assistant Protection Officer. At the time UNHCR-BO, Nairobi was screening asylum seekers from Rwanda, Burundi, Congo DRC, Uganda, Southern Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea to determine if they deserved protection as refugees under the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1969 OAU Convention. Asylum seekers from Somalia & Southern Sudanese automatically qualified to be admitted as refugees under the 1969 OAU Convention. The complex cases were from Ethiopia and Rwanda where serious atrocities had preceded the violent change of governments and it was not easy distinguishing victims from the perpetrators of atrocities which led people to flee to Kenya. The United Nations had in November 1994 established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha to try the perpetrators of Genocide which had occurred in Rwanda between January and December 1994. 

UN Secretary General Ban Kii Moon addressing ICTR

 

In 1999, the UNHCR in conjunction with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) decided to bring to a close the issues of legitimacy and eligibility for refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and Congo DRC. The UNHCR and OCHA launched the Great Lakes Operation (GLO) in Nairobi and hired Eligibility Officers whose task was inter alia, registration of urban refugees; their families and unaccompanied minors as well conducting interviews to document their for flight. For Rwandese caseload the Eligibility Officers were also required to identify any direct perpetrators, accomplices, financiers and potential witnesses of the genocide and crimes against humanity which had occurred in that country between January and December 1999. Identities and reports of any such people were to be shared with a Liaison Officer in the Office of the Registrar, ICTR, Arusha.

The Registrar of the ICTR and his staff visited Nairobi to explain to the Eligibility Officers what exactly they were required to do if they positively identified suspects and potential witnesses of genocide and other crimes committed in Rwanda. They explained that although ICTR had strict timelines within which to end their investigations and try the suspects, the timelines could be extended depending on how much information we gathered and the evidential accounts we documented. During a break, one staffer told us (jokingly) that we should collect as much information as possible; document every account with some sort of “evidence” and not “rush” the process because any rush would lead to the disbandment of ICT and GLO; loss of prestigious jobs and hefty perks we were enjoying from the UN! We laughed at the joke but we got the message. To many ICTR staff in Arusha the tribunal was not just about justice for the victims of genocide, but about jobs and hefty salaries. The evidential value of the accounts we recorded did not matter so much either. GLO officers documented credible horrendous accounts from the victims of the genocide (possible witnesses) and identities, locations and family relations of some perpetrators who were living in Kenyan and Tanzanian Cities but the Registrar’s Office never acted on them. In fact some of the suspects we identified in Nairobi were able to relocate to West Africa, Belgium and France while ICTR was sitting pretty at Arusha. This is one reason the Government of Rwanda has very unkind words for the ICTR which 20 years down the line is yet to complete the cases before it. The tribunal has failed to meet its 2008 and 2012 deadlines set by the UN Security Council; it has completed only 50 trials with 29 convictions, still has 11 on-going trials and 14 pending trials. The UN has set a new December 31, 2014 deadline but you can bet it won’t be met either. All because of money! Yes, Judges, the Prosecutor and the Registrar cannot “rush” the process and kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

ICC

Currently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seized of two cases from Kenya. The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has severally admitted that they do not have any evidence to commence the trial against President Uhuru Kenyatta. In the case against Deputy President William Ruto and Mr. Joshua Arap Sang, the OTP is unable to progress its case since some of the witnesses have withdrawn and admitted having lied to the court. Just like in the case of ICTR, these witnesses and evidential accounts were procured through intermediaries. But the OTP and the Judges do not want to end the circus and focus their energies to much more serious situations in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq. The whole charade clearly portrays ICC as a political, neo-colonial and racist court which is only fit to try Africans and other racial undesirables.

Deputy President & Joshua Arap Sang in court

The OTP, the Office of the Registrar and Judges know that if they bring the two Kenyan cases to a close, they will become jobless! So, it does not matter to them whether there is evidence against President Kenyatta and his Deputy Ruto, the cases will be kept pending for as long as possible. That is international “justice” for you. It is not and was never about justice for the victims or accountability for perpetrators of crime, but about prestige and hefty perks for the lawyers; Judges, Prosecutors and intermediaries contracted to gather "evidence"!  

 

Twitter: @DeCaptainCFE