From: People For Peace

Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2011

Although Tourism Minister, Mr Najib Balala has denied any link with Al-Shabbab, the fact that Muslim Youth Centre (MYC), commonly known as Pumwani Muslim Youth he financed is known for aiding Al-Shabaab militia in Somalia by extensively funding, recruiting and providing training networks for its recruits in Kenya is the reason why he is being accused by UN Monitoring Unit.

Riyadha Mosque in Majengo, Nairobi under construction which a recent UN Monitoring unit linked it to supporting the Al-shabaab adherents in Somalia- Photo/Standard

Al-Shabaab, literally meaning “the youth,” is an offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which splintered into several smaller groups in 2006 and began operating as an independent entity in early 2007. Since then it has been waging an insurgency against the UN-backed government in Somalia.

According to UN report, Nairobi’s Eastleigh is hub for Al-Shabaab militants. Kenya has a large Somali diaspora living in the Eastleigh suburb of the capital Nairobi, along with nearly 400,000 Somalis living in the world’s biggest refugee camp in Dadaab in the north of the country.

A general view of Eastleigh shopping centre in Nairobi-There is booming retail and wholesale businesses in the area. A United Nation’s report identifies Eastleigh as the hub for Somali-based Al-Shabaab militants/ Photo-Nation

Refugees have taken the advantage among other things to buying and selling passports and illegal procurement of visas, Kenyan identification cards and to some extent drugs. The report further says Busia border point along the Kenya/Uganda road is the most porous of all the entry and exit points in the country.

Undercover NTV video footage taken by the crew June this year showed the activities of a network of terror recruiters luring youths to go and fight in Somalia. One of the key recruiters captured on tape is a serving member of the Kenyan military and a Muslim, Corporal Hussein Abdullahi Athan who has been in the Kenyan military for 10 years.

The organisation maintains its grip on power by using violence and intimidation, while also having the necessary funds, weapons, technical expertise, and human resources needed to conduct operations. It raises money by taxing international aid organisations, collecting funds from citizens, receiving remittances from abroad, and receiving financial support from Eritrea and now Kenya.

The fact that Hussein is also a trained engineer – a skill set, in the army it means that, among other things, he is a specialist in laying land mines and booby traps as well as in bridge-building. His base is 10 Engineers in Nanyuki, but he is currently attached to the school of combat engineering in Isiolo as a trainer. He was meeting the NTV crews as a soldier loyal to al Shabaab.

Mind you, the Kenya Defence Forces Minister also happened to be a Muslim, Mohamed Yusuf Haji, so you can see the connection. Mind you again, that the current Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) head is also a military, Maj-Gen Michael Gichangi.

Although it could politically be argued that President Mwai Kibaki re appointed Maj-Gen Michael Gichangi as NSIS boss to enable him foresee dubious plans pertaining to the threats of the security in his government, the Minister for Defence still has the power.

This is because the core function of the Ministry of State for Defence as spelt out in the Armed Forces Act, chapter 199 is to defend the Republic of Kenya against armed external aggression. The secondary mission is to provide support to civil authorities in maintenance of order. In this regard, the Ministry contributes to the maintence of national security by guaranteeing and preserving the territorial integrity of our country.

It would also mean that even though Gen Julius Waweru Karangi who was appointed the new Chief of the Defence Forces on July 13, 2011 to take over from Gen Jeremiah Mutinda Kianga, he cannot do much to foresee the security threats as the minister.

Corporal Hussein Abdullahi Athan is the best trainer for the Al-Shabaab given that the tactics employed include guerrilla techniques characteristic of terror groups when targeting its enemies, including suicide bombings, (remote-controlled) roadside bombs, grenade attacks, assassinations, and small-arms attacks.

It explains why Al Shabab is one of Africa’s most fearsome militant Islamist groups. The Shabab claimed responsibility for coordinated bomb attacks that tore through crowds watching the 2010 World Cup final in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, killing at least 70 people, including an American aid worker.

Although Mr Balala denied any link with the A-Shabaab, saying he only attended a fundraiser in support of Riyadha mosque in Nairobi’s Pumwani area in September 2009 and donated Sh200,000 which was wired to an account operated by the Islamist movement that controls much of southern Somalia, the fact that this money was deposited in a Habib Bank account, operated by al Shabaab’s point man in Nairobi Ahmad Imam and other Muslim youth centre members puts him at fixed.

This is not the first time the Muslims linked with terrorism in Kenya have been supported financially. In November 2001, Kenyan authorities arrested some 50 Muslims suspected of having business links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. Most of the suspects, who were later released, had reportedly been receiving money from relatives and friends working in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The arrests mainly centered on the heavily Muslim populated coastal city of Mombasa.

Since then tensions have been high between the Muslim community and the Kenyan government. Muslims on the coast, the northeast and in Nairobi complain that they have been persecuted on the flimsy excuse of being terrorist suspects. In Mombasa, roughly 60 percent of the population is Muslim.

It is claimed that Muslim charity organizations founded to help the poor in northern Kenya and Somalia have been used to fund al-Qaeda. Working with sympathizers inside the charities, al-Qaeda is said to have used humanitarian funds for terrorist attacks in Kenya, Tanzania and Indonesia.

In one case, donations to the al-Haramain Foundation to support Islamic preachers ended up in the pockets of a suspect in the November 2002 bombing of the Israeli hotel in Mombasa according to Associated Press, June 6, 2004. Quoting U.S. officials, the report said that a fish business financed with charity funds also steered profits to the al-Qaeda cell behind the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in East Africa.

A Kenyan Muslim preacher on Al-Haramain’s payroll until February told AP he knows at least two Islamic preachers who are still being paid by the charity. The preacher, who was paid 8,000 Kenyan shillings, or just over $100, a month, asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Kenya is susceptible to terrorism, especially due to the government’s close relationship with the United States and other Western democracies. The influx of Somali refugees crossing into the country from war-torn Somalia is another reason why the international community should worry about the country’s internal wrangles.

It is reported that over 25,000 new refugees from Somalia have entered Kenya as a result of the Islamic courts taking power. There are genuine concerns that Islamic radicals may be using this refugee flow to smuggle weapons and people into Kenya to engage in terrorist attacks against Western interests.

Al Qaeda operations in Kenya have been closely linked to Somalia, which, since the 1991 fall of military ruler Siad Barre, has been a haven to Al Qaeda operatives and saw the emergence of the armed fundamentalist militia, AI AI. It worked closely with Al Qaeda to undermine the US-led United Nations Intervention in Somalia in the mid-1990s and acted as an agent of the then radical Islamic regime in Sudan to destabilize neighboring Ethiopia.

Al Qaeda used Kenya as a gateway to support its activities in Somalia, through financial transactions, the hosting of meetings in Nairobi, the shipment of arms, facilitation of travel by its operatives and through other forms of support.

From Somalia, Al Qaeda came to nest itself in Kenya’s Coastal Muslim community, using coastal shipping routes out of Somalia, recruited Kenyans to participate in its activities plotted to bomb.

The Al Qaeda-linked organization, AI AI, has sought to gain a foothold within Kenya’s Somali community in North Eastern Province, especially among the refugees who had fled from neighboring Somalia after the collapse of the Somali state in 1991. In recent years, North Eastern Province has witnessed the growth of Islamic fundamentalism supported in part by Saudi-financed charities and also attributable in the Somali refugee camps to AI AI activists.

Kenya’s Muslim population is concentrated in the Coast, Eastern and North Eastern Provinces. Kenya’s Muslims largely follow a Sunni tradition of Islam that goes back many centuries and is heavily influenced by the tolerant teachings of the Sufi brotherhoods. The small community of Kenyan Shiite Muslims is largely composed of descendants of immigrants from India and Pakistan.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org