A year ago, Kenya’s army suffered its worst attack in history inside Somalia chiefly due to lack of clear objectives and operational strategies. The government has kept the exact details secret, even as it spends $1 billion annually without crushing al-Shabaab. Meanwhile lecturers, doctors, nurses and other workers are up in arms demanding better terms. The military invasion of Somalia, now in its sixth year, has failed and should be halted. An alternative reconstruction plan for Somalia is needed.
Introduction
It was in October 2011 when the Kenyan armed forces invaded Somalia in the well-publicized anti-terrorist campaign called Operation Linda Nchi (defend the country). One year afterwards, the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) seized the port of Kismayo in Southern Somalia under the Operation Sledge Hammer. This strategic port had been the center of the lucrative illicit trade in charcoal, sugar, petroleum products and other commodities worth more than $400 million per year. This ‘victory’ over Al Shabaab at Kismayo gave rise to the celebratory mode of the Kenyan military circles with publicity that Al Shabaab was in retreat. This refrain of 2012 was taken up at the highest levels of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), repeated at the United Nations in New York and in the corridors of the National Security Council of the USA. General Carter Ham (in his last days as the head of the US Africa Command) used the taking of Kismayo as a reference point to justify the role of AFRICOM in Africa. But these narratives of victory were demolished with spectacular attacks by al Shabaab after 2012 culminating in January 15, 2016 when a small group of Somali insurgents overran the camp of the 9th and 15th battalions of the Kenya Rifles at El Adde and killed over 150 Kenyan soldiers. The exact number of the dead is not known because the Kenyan government has refused to release the information on this military defeat.