War in Horn Africa:Kenyan forces go after raiders inside Somalia – More Related News + VIDEO

Laaska News Oct. 17,2011
Kenyan forces cross into Somalia to hunt for al Shabaab militia 

NAIROBI, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) — Kenyan combined security forces have crossed the border into Somalia to pursue militants of Al Qaida-linked group al Shabaab.

Police sources confirmed on Sunday evening the joint operation was launched with agreement with Somali government forces to hunt Islamic groups who kidnapped two Spanish, French and one British women in the past few days.

“Yes, the joint operation is underway in search for al Shabaab militia who have been blamed for recent abductions of foreign in northern Kenya,” a senior security official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Eye witnesses said the country’s military planes and helicopters overflew the border with Somalia as troops and their paramilitary counterparts around Liboi crossed the frontier to engage the militants.

The witnesses said the country’s military crossed into the Horn of African in Mandera with orders to fight their way into the lawless country and create a buffer zone to ensure that insurgents do not launch attacks against Kenya.

The witnesses said they saw military trucks at border points and choppers in the air which are said to have bombed al Shabaab positions on Sunday.

They said the troops crossed more than 100 km into Somalia in hot pursuit of the kidnappers of two Spanish aid workers from the Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest refugee camp.

“There is fierce fighting going on inside Somalia. Residents are aware about the operation which has been launched by Kenyan troops inside Somalia,” Wycliffe Kimani, a teacher in Mandera told Xinhua on Sunday evening.

The latest crackdown on Somalia militia group came after the government invoked Article 51 of the UN chapter that gives a country the go ahead to defend itself against any aggression in its territory.

Speaking earlier on Sunday, Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said that the article further gives a state the right to enter into a foreign country to prevent any such occurrence and that the action aims to push al Shabaab military forces as far away from the border as possible.

Saitoti confirmed that the East African nation which has been hosting thousands of Somali refugees has launched a spirited offensive on the al Shabaab and will not relent until the country’s territorial boundary is secure.

“By invoking article 51 of the UN Charter, Kenya has the backing of the UN Security Council to pursue the al Shabaab into Somalia,” the security minister said during a tour of Isiolo and Tigania East on Sunday.

“We are on the trail of the al Shabaab and we are going to extinguish the al Shabaab militias that have visited suffering on innocent Kenyans and foreigners,” he said.

The al Shabaab threat is very real and grave and it is undermining our national security as well as our economy.

He said the al Shabaab militia has in the recent past abducted four foreigners from inside Kenya undermining the economy of the country, adding that the militias abducted two military personnel who since July have not been unaccounted for.

The two Spanish women, Montserrat Serra, age 40, from Girona (Palafrugell) and Blanca Thiebaut, age 30, from Madrid, both working as logisticians for MSF in the Dadaab refugee camp were abducted on Thursday in Daddab refugee camp.

Sources near the common frontier said early on Sunday that Kenyan forces are assembling at the border points where they are getting briefs and other relevant instructions as they prepare to enter the lawless country which has been not without a central government for more than two decades.

The sources said the combined security forces are under firm instructions for the next assignment which will mainly include pushing the al Shabaab rebels far away inside Somalia from the common border.

But speaking at the local television, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Security Francis Kimemia said a large contingent of Kenyan troops have been deployed to hunt for the al Shabaab and push them inside Somalia.

“Now we can’t wait for the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia or Amisom. Article 51 of the UN charter allows us to pursue them. It allows you to hit anybody who hits you or is planning to hit you,” Kimemie told Citizen Television on Sunday evening.

“And also allows you to pursue those who have hit and ran away, ” Kimemia said, adding that the country has been under sustained provocation from al Shabaab for months, with the al-Qaida-linked group raiding across the border.

The PS said it was the militant group which has declared war against Kenya, “we have subsequently done the same and there no is turning back.”

Defense Ministry said late on Sunday that Kenya was using various options in pursuing the al Shabaab militants.

“We have a long border with Somalia which stretches 1,400 kilometers from Mandera to Kiunga and we are exploring aerial, naval and ground offensive options,” the ministry said in statement.

The statement which was issued after a long security meeting with relief agencies said other international forces in a “concerted effort and rescue operation” joined Kenya.

Aid agencies working in northern Kenya and in Somalia said the latest attack is jeopardizing the assistance to thousands of people in urgent need of humanitarian aid and a quick and satisfactory solution is necessary.

United Nations staff and international aid workers often travel with armed Kenyan police escorts from their bases to the various camps. They are not allowed, under their regulations, to travel on their own.

However, MSF usually operates without a security escort. The medical humanitarian organization delivers emergency aid to people affected by war, epidemics and disasters.

The kidnapping comes weeks after Somali gunmen abducted a British woman and a French woman from beach resorts in separate incidents along the northern Kenyan coast. Both women are being held hostage in Somalia.

Xinhua.

by NTVKenya on Oct 16, 2011

Kenyan forces go after raiders inside Somalia

By FRED MUKINDA
Kenyan forces were on Sunday operating deep inside Somalia with orders to make sure there are no al Shabaab extremists within 100 kilometres of the border.

Units from the Kenya Army are understood to have crossed into Somalia at Liboi and Mandera with orders to fight their way into the lawless country and create a buffer zone to ensure that insurgents do not launch attacks against Kenya.

Kenya Air Force and the Navy will be sent out as the need arises, security sources told the Nation.

Soldiers actually crossed into Somalia days before the announcement by Internal Security Minister George Saitoti and Defence Minister Yusuf Haji. (READ: Kenya declares war on Al Shabaab)

Internal Security permanent secretary Francis Kimemia said security forces had drawn up strategies to defeat al Shabaab in their own land.

“How it will be done, the number of troops involved and where they will strike remains a preserve of the military. We can’t give information that would be useful to the enemy,” he said.

Witnesses have reported military trucks at border points and military choppers in the air. Foreign troops are already on the ground in Somalia, mainly from Uganda and Burundi, under the African Union.

The Federal Transitional Government, the weak authority in Somalia backed by the international community, also has troops trained in Kenya and Uganda and paid for by western donors.

“Now we can’t wait for the TFG or Amisom. Article 51 of the UN charter allows us to pursue them. It allows you to hit anybody who hits you or is planning to hit you.

“And also allows you to pursue those who have hit and ran away,” Mr Kimemia said.

Kenya has been under sustained provocation from al Shabaab for months, with the al-Qaeda-linked group raiding across the border and, last Thursday, kidnapping two Spanish aid workers at the Daadab refugee camp.

French woman Marie Dedieu was kidnapped on Manda Island on October 1 while Mrs Judith Tebbutt, a Briton, was abducted and her husband David shot dead at Kiwayu resort in Kiunga in September.

In all incidents, those captured were taken to Somalia and are being held in al Shabaab bases. Prof Saitoti announced the decision to send troops to Somalia in a press conference on Saturday. He branded Somalia’s al-Qaeda-inspired al Shabaab rebels “the enemy” and vowed to attack them “wherever they will be.”

Helicopter gunships

The military is probably better armed than at any time in its recent history.

Last year, Kenya was reported to have spent Sh27 billion on combat aircraft, helicopter gunships, grenade launchers and other weapons and was Africa’s fourth largest military spender after South Africa, Angola and Sudan. (READ: Sh27bn Kenya arms purchase queried)

Kenya can also raise a reasonably large army — last year the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that 20 million Kenyans were available for military service. Out of these, about 12 million men and women were fit for service.

Military sources traced the upsurge in militia activity to August 12, when al Shabaab vanished from Mogadishu overnight, following a sustained assault by AU and Somalia government forces.

It appears that, having lost the war on that front, the extremist group is testing Kenya as a “soft target” for lucrative hostages. Article 51 of the UN Charter, which Kenya is relying on to justify sending its troops across the border, says:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

“Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Set up security posts

Meanwhile, Kenya needs to develop a long-term strategy to secure all its borders, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence has said.

Mr Adan Keynan, who is also the MP for Wajir West, said the military should start this process by setting up security posts at intervals of 20 kilometres along the border with Somalia.

Mr Keynan said the action against the al Shaabab would be an opportunity for the army to show Kenyans how well its peacetime army can do its job.

“We have one of the most professionally run disciplined forces in Africa,” said Mr Keynan, adding, the Army would be judged harshly if it does not succeed in pushing away the militia.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the pursuit of the Somalia militia group was on. “We will give the details tomorrow (Monday),” he said.

An AFP reporter close to the border witnessed large numbers of troops as well as military planes and helicopters overhead.

Several witnesses reported heavy troop movement in Kenya’s border regions, with truckloads of soldiers heading towards the frontier. The kidnappings at the Coast have dealt a major blow to the tourism industry.

Speaking when he arrived in the country after an international trip, Tourism Minister Najib Balala said the insecurity caused by Somali militias requires an international solution.

Stop wasting lives, money in Somalia, US report urges 
 
In Summary

The chaos in Somalia during the past 20 years has taken as many as 1.5 million lives and has cost about $55 billion, according to a new report co-authored by a leading critic of US policy.

The estimated losses include 750 fatalities suffered by the Ugandan and Burundian troops that make up the African Union Mission in Somalia, Amisom, authors Bronwyn Bruton and John Norris calculate.
The chaos in Somalia in the past 20 years has taken as many as 1.5 million lives and cost about $55 billion, according to a new report co-authored by a leading critic of US policy.

The estimated losses include 750 fatalities suffered by the Ugandan and Burundian troops that make up the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom), authors Bronwyn Bruton and John Norris calculate.

They also calculate that about $800 million has been spent on the Amisom deployment since its start in 2007, while the military involvement of Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Djibouti has amounted to another $444 million.

The report published by the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank, further reckons that drone strikes, surveillance and counterterrorism have consumed $495 million. “Cash payments to warlords” in Somalia is meanwhile figured to be $105 million.

The international bill for piracy is put at $22 billion. Humanitarian and development aid is said to have totalled $13 billion, and the Somali diaspora is believed to have sent home $11.2 billion in remittances since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991.

The overall outlay for Somalia may seem “modest” in comparison with the costs to the United States of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, “but what’s remarkable is how little we have to show for it,” Bruton and Norris write.

They cite “a recent confidential audit of the Somali government” suggesting that 96 percent of direct bilateral aid to the government in 2009 and 2010 “had simply disappeared, presumably into the pockets of corrupt officials.”

“The repeated failure of international efforts to produce positive change in Somalia has generated fatigue among donors at a time when Somalia’s needs have never been greater,” Bruton and Norris add.

Bruton, a Somalia scholar, caused a stir in 2009 by urging the US to cease its support for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government. And she argues in a separate study published early this month that the failure to establish order in Somalia underscores “the profound error” of taking a top-down, state-centred approach.

This recent study, co-authored with Africa specialist J. Peter Pham, instead proposes a strategy of “earned engagement.”
“Various Somali actors — governmental entities, regional authorities, clans, and civil society organisations — would be accorded equal access to international resources,” Bruton and Pham suggest, “but only to the extent that they prove themselves capable of meeting defined benchmarks.

Al-Shabaab leaders who renounced al-Qa’ida, promised regional cooperation, and focused on providing for their clan constituencies would be prime targets for engagements, while militant jihadists would be excluded.”

The Bruton-Norris report says that Kenya and Ethiopia have both profited and lost as a result of the conflict in Somalia.

The two neighbouring countries have experienced economic and social strains due to the influx of hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees, the report notes.

It adds, however, that Kenya and Ethiopia “may have accrued certain benefits.”

For instance, Somalis annually purchase about $500 million worth of miraa imports from the two producing countries, the report says.

In addition, “the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi has seen a tremendous economic boom as a result of Somali diaspora investment. Kenya also has profited from humanitarian traffic through its ports and its status as an international development hub.”

Bruton and Norris draw a comparison between US spending in support of Siad Barre’s dictatorship during the Cold War and the money lavished on the Transitional Federal Government as part of the US global anti-terrorism strategy.

Washington’s support of the TFG has endured “despite its proven record of corruption, rampant and admitted use of child soldiers, and frequent inability to maintain control of territory. In fact,” the report adds, the TFG’s record of governance is probably worse than Siad Barre’s in many regards.”

Bruton and Norris caution that their research makes use of a variety of official and unofficial sources as well as “some educated guesswork.”

They add that “the profound lack of reliable data and the enormous variance in the economic and political standing of Somalia’s regions complicated our efforts.”

For instance, Somalis annually purchase about $500 million worth of mira’a imports from the two producing countries, the report says. In addition, “The Eastleigh neighbourhood of Nairobi has seen a tremendous economic boom as a result of Somali diaspora investment.

Kenya also has profited from humanitarian traffic through its ports and its status as an international development hub.”

Bruton and Norris draw a comparison between US spending in support of Siad Barre’s dictatorship during the Cold War and the money lavished on the Transitional Federal Government as part of the US global anti-terrorism strategy.

 
We don’t admit terror agents, says UN

 
Photo/FILE Somali refugees wait to be screened by UNHCR officials at Dadaab camp. 

By AGGREY MUTAMBO
Sunday, October 16  2011 at  22:30

A UN agency in charge of refugees on Sunday absolved itself from blame that it could be allowing into the country members of al-Shabaab guised as refugees.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said the authenticity of refugees entering Dadaab camp is solely the responsibility of the Kenyan government.

Mr Fafa Attidzah, the UNHCR Head of Sub-Office in Dadaad, said the agency only registers refugees recognised by the government.

“Before we admit any refugees, they must first all get recognition from the Department of Refugee Affairs (Kenya).

“I think the question of whether those who come here are genuine or not should be directed to the government,” he said.

Mr Attidzah said that it was the government that first allows refugees in through the border and that “we are always in liaison with the government for this information.”

Mr Attidzah’s comments came as the government approved military pursuit of the Al-Shabaab terror group which last week kidnapped two Spanish medics from the Dadaab Refugee Camp. (READ: Kenyan troops off to war)

Internal Security Minister George Saitoti on Saturday said that Somalia refugees at the camp would be subjected to screening on suspicion that some of them could be Al Shabaab sympathisers.

In July, Kenya yielded to international pressure and allowed in more Somali refugees to the already overcrowded camp. (READ: Kenya told to open up new refugee camp)

It now hosts more than 525,000 people most of whom come from Somalia, making it the most populous refugee centre in the world.

At the height of the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa, the Nation spent over a week traversing the length and width of the Camp located in Garissa County.

It comprises three different smaller camps; Dagahaley, Hagadera and Ifo and covers an area of about 50 square kilometres. The camps were initially supposed to host only 90,000 people.

Most of them were reluctant to go back, in case the war and the drought came to an end. At Ifo, for instance, refugees have schools, a hospital (run by GIZ) and several health posts managed by Doctors without Borders (MSF)

The camp with a capacity to host 90,000 refugees now supports more than 525,000 people, making it the most populous refugee centre in the world.

The facilities offer free medical services to the refugees. Within the camp is a market where they can buy beef, take a beer or two and even lodge for the night.

And despite the camp covering an area of 50 square kilometres and being close to the dangerous Somali border, the camp is manned by just 255 police officers.

This has led to each aid agency to plan its security measures.
 

NATION.

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