Bright Head but easily twisted ‘Smartness'

A muslim medical student in a practical class

                                  

A surge in the number of students being arrested on suspicion of joining the Islamic State (ISIS) has triggered alarm on the group's recruitment efforts Kenya. The Commission of University Education says at least 44 university students have abandoned their studies to join terror groups including ISIS in Libya and Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Concern is especially growing over the number of students studying medicine who have been detained on suspicion of belonging to terror groups. On Wednesday, the US government froze the assets of Somali resident Abduqadir Mumin, who it identified as the leader of the Islamic State in East Africa and warned its citizens against conducting any business with him.

"Mumin, a former Al-Shabaab recruiter and spokesman, pledged allegiance to ISIS, along with around 20 of his followers, in October 2015. And has set up a base in Puntland, Somalia," said the US State Department.

Unlike Shabaab, which recruits directly, ISIS increases its membership through the creation of franchises or raiding other terror groups for members by convincing their terror cells to join them. It is believed Mumin's cell - which calls itself "Jahba East Africa" - is behind the massive recruitment drive for the Islamic State in East Africa.

Al-Shabaab, which is believed to have been weakened significantly due to wrangles among its leadership and a sustained campaign against it by the African Union mission (Amisom), pledges its allegiance to Al-Qaeda, a fierce rival to the Islamic State. Apart from the El-Adde base attack in which dozens of Kenya Defence Forces soldiers were killed after Shabaab militants raided their camp in Somalia, the militant group, which has killed hundreds of Kenyans in recent years, has not staged a major attack in Kenya this year.

The number of terror attacks on Kenyan soil dropped to 46 last year, 49 per cent lower than the figure for 2015 and 2014, the lowest since 2001, according to statistics collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which is run by the University of Sussex in the UK. The university, which compiles data drawn from media reports on terrorist attacks around the world, says Kenya has had 13 militant attacks carried out within its territory so far since January 2016, leading to 34 causalities. Last year saw 94 attacks while 2013 and 2012 had 48 and 52 attacks respectively.

Security experts say while ISIS has no reason to attack Kenya, the reported recruitment drive is a cause for worry.

"We have not reached a level where we have an active ISIS threat in Kenya because what we have is people willing to join the terror group or sympathetic to them,"

Major (Rtd) Bashir Abdullahi, a security analyst says.

But more worrying is the fact that those being arrested on suspicion of being members of the terror group are in the medical field.

Few weeks ago two interns at the Malindi Hospital, Mohamed Shukri and Abdulrazak Abdinuur, were arrested by officers from the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) on suspicion of having links to the group. Both are studying medicine at Saratov State Medical University in Russia courtesy of a scholarship from the Russian government.

Last year (2015), four other medical interns at the same hospital were arrested for allegedly planning to join ISIS. The four Maryam Said, Khadija Abdulkadir, Ummul Khayr (all Kenyans) and Sadir Abdalla from Tanzania were presented to court and their cases are ongoing.

In February this year, ATPU arrested Hassanaen Ahmed, a University of Nairobi biochemistry student as he was leaving the country to travel to Libya reportedly to join ISIS. And in May, Gloria Kavaya, a microbiology student at the Kenyatta University was arrested after she disappeared from school, changed her name and embarked on plans to travel to Syria, according to a government prosecuter.

Just in the same month (May), police said they had foiled a large scale biological attack using anthrax that would have caused a damage similar scale to the Westgate mall attack. Mohamed Abdi, a medical intern at the Wote Hospital in Makueni and a student at the Kampala International University were among three suspects arrested for this foiled biological attack as alleged by the police. His wife Nuseiba Mohammed - whom police identified as an accomplice and student at Kampala International University - ware arrested a few days later by Ugandan Police as she tried to flee the country together with another Kenyan female student Fatuma Hanshi, according to the police source. The two were handed over to the Kenyan government for prosecution. Both the two, Ahmed Hish and Farah Dagane,  medical interns at Kitale hospital, have a Sh2 million bounty on them.

"The same network has been facilitating Kenyan youth to secretly leave the country to join terror groups in Libya and Syria," said Kenya’s police Inspector General Joseph Boinnet.

So, what is it that is making practitioners in the medical field get attracted to terror groups?

The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (KMPDB), which regulates the practice of medicine in the country, has refused to be drawn into the debate saying it is not part of their mandate.

"This is something we don't want to get involved in because it is not a medical malpractice, it's a security issue that the security forces must deal with"  says Daniel Yumbya KMPDB chief executive.

Medicine is regarded as a prestigious career attracting the brightest students in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.

Psychologist Philomena Ndambuki from the Kenyatta University says like all terror recruits, those joining ISIS are driven by a desire to belong to something, an idea ISIS uses to draw disillusioned youth around the world into its ranks through social media.

"Doctors are driven by altruism and a desire to help others, which terrorist recruiters can exploit by promising potential recruits they will be serving a bigger cause," says Dr Ndambuki.

A widely circulated tweet by the Islamic State's British recruiter Omar Hussain says: "The wage here may not be as much as you get in the West, but do we live for this life or do we live for the hereafter? Is money more important than the life of your Muslim brother?"

It is such messages that Dr Ndambuki believes turn bright minds into terrorists through a process she calls warped idealism. But it is not just ISIS, the leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over from Osama Bin Laden (who was an engineer) is an eye surgeon from Egypt., while Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the ISIS, has a PhD in Islamic studies. And since June last year, ISIS has been running a campaign calling for foreign professionals like health workers and engineers through blogs, social media, magazines and online videos to join its ranks as locals continue to flee areas where it controls.

IS KDF IN SOMALI ON THE RIGHT COURSE?

           FIVE YEARS LATER DID KENYA ACHIEVED THE THREE AMISOM MANDATE?

                                           Public holiday cellebration by the military

Kenya's military often referred as KDF is ranked sixth best in the Africa's continent. Most Citizens describe it as a brutal and highly trained with modern warfare equipments. In fact in every public holiday they display military might with perfectly organised state of the art ceremony showcasing both unique warfare talents and mighty 21st century military training. Watching them from a screen make you feel that Hollywood actions are too real. Away from this lets measure them in the warfare with Alshabaab..

Post 2011 

Kenya crossed into Somalia in the late 2011 in an operation dubbed Linda Nchi which translates to Secure the nation. The reason the military crossed is one of the most pettiest thing in the history of warfare and is now taught in military schools across the globe. It is often described as a war that its entrant strategy was drafted whilst the military infantry was deep into Somali border. What is more grievous is the feeling and the negative attitude the citizens had and still have to date. The anger by the people to the government in making them support a war that started procedural and one that its victories and losses are hidden from them. Speaking to low ranked military officers (upto the rank Captain) one will simply understand that the forces themselves have negative perception and conspiracy theories surrounding the war itself look so real from the narratives of the servicemen.

                                    First batch of military that captured Kismayu

To understand that the country is in a war that it play as actors not main subject is a real issue that KDF commanders are grappling and coming to terms with. In the aftermath of the El-Adde attack Kenya vacated three major military base and the operation of rescue and recover was too slow as the command was to be sort from AMISOM and not KDF generals. The truth is Kenya can't even reveal the number of forces it lost because they are a proxy unit in the larger AMISOM forces in Somalia. If only it could be independent, am sure by now the defence team would have availed the information to the Kenyans.That is the frustration of being an actor and not the head in a military protocol. Kenya is not independent is what Kenyans must live with.

Now that Kenya Defence forces is a sub-unit of the larger AMISOM we need to understand AMISOM.

                                    Amisom officer patrolling streets of Kismayu

African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was established on 19 January 2007 by the African union peace and security council. As an actor Kenya was given THREE major areas of military operations that are hard and require highest professionalism and brutality if need be. The areas are;

  -Downgrading and decapitation of Alshabaab.
  -To establish a stable governance and order including creation strong caretaker institutions in places     captured.
  - Creation of corridors for humanitarian assistance and healthy/safe environment for workers and           those who need dire help
Five years down the line as a force that was given the hardest military task did KDF achieve anything on the three proposition? My answer is party YES and partly NO.

It is no doubt that Kenya has achieved over 80 percent success on downgrading and decapacitation since late 2015. Residents in Somalia that live in areas where Alshabaab operate believe that the entry of a sect that has its allegiance to the ISIS is now more brutal and too aggressive compared to the weakened Alshabaab. In theories of offending new criminals tend to cause huge damage than established sect. Although Alshabaab claimed responsibility for the El-Adde, their are multiple modus operandi that were so unique showing that their was a helping hand in planing and its execution to pull a' huge' casualty on Kenya Defence Forces. The remaining 20% of degrading will take longer than Kenya plans as the entry of US special elite forces and drone strengthens the one narrative theory of radicalisation  and sympathy generation from Somali population that US invaded Somalia again. I wish the US could support Kenya silently to do the remaining downgrading and decapitation.

                Pictures of Alshabaab militant killed by Kenya Defence forces at Baure Lamu

The Darood factor in the second mandate

On the second mandate of Kenya in this AMISOM strategy, conspiracy theory of a military that is used by one ethnic community to overtake the port city of Kismayu dominates local tea dens and 'fadikudirir' places. This maybe true or maybe a fallacy but military operation after the El-adde attack on Gedo region now gives a life line to the conspiracy. In fact it can be safely said that Alshabaab enjoys safe hideouts in the Gedo region than in any other place in Somali. The Main planner of Westgate attack was reported to be marehaan radicalised by Bajunis in the coast. Unless Kenya comes cleans of these allegations and theories that dominate locals mind and shape ordinary people's opinion the Daroods indifference will escalate right within Kenya.
Kenya needs a honest advisor from the Diir or Hawiye clan of the Somali community. A somali professor that i so much respect one time in a coffee meeting told me Kenya is fighting Alshabaab that are Darood and it is doing for another Darood.

            A deserted school in Gedo region. The residents say military bombings was everyday event

Huge complexity in the third mandate

On the third mandate, Kenya's forces can only do it if the first two others are successful. Looking at how major INGO's are using local NGO's partly solve the problem but most of the international humanitarian expert believe that Alshabaab has so many proxy local NGO's that receive aid as genuine one and later transfer to the different brigades of the sect. Kenya's team has totaly failed in this. In most of the modern military warfare the team that control basic needs of the other is bound to win. It will be too fatal to stop all aids as hundreds of genuine families may be affected. Donor agencies and aid distributing team must come up with a way, a safe way to help the vulnerable and deal with huge loss towards Alshabaab.

                  Aid distribution. Experts believe most of this goes to Alshabaab camps

Constitutional Way forward to the country

Kenya is a country of laws. The constitution was breached when the country defence force was going into the war is a true testimony. What is also true is that Article 238 categorically empowers the national assembly to;
  - Conduct an independent inquiry into the military warfare in Somalis or in any other place, and
  - Demand progress reports from department of defence on any warfare the country fights

                                                             Kenya's National assembly

All blames should be directed to the parliament for sleeping on its job when more than 80% of Kenyans feel that the country is in a war that is not defined in terms of output and the safety of the 40 million Kenyans and the troops.
The president must listen to the cries of the kenyans and suppress the ego that we will only move out with huge success. We have already won. The constitution is clear that security organs are subordinate to the civilian authority and consequently accountability is a mandatory ingredient in all government operations.
 

VIDEO OF HOW SECURITY FORCES CREATE 'HURTED' COMMUNITY  

One of the main drivers of violent extremism is often identified as police harassment that creates a drift between police and members of the community. All over the world the security forces are encouraged and trained to handle citizens and criminals with utmost care and attention. The US president in his first speech at Azhaar University said '' In modern countries where accountability is practiced and rule of law upheld, the presence of a police induces the first sense of absolute security. In Africa, the presence of Security is actually the start of Insecurity itself''.

 Kenya, a country that boost that it has one of the most robust democracy and rule of law rightly fits into President Obamas description. It has no doubts that the security forces dealings on the Muslim community and specificly Somali people creates more radicals than it is solving. 

In a documentary by Aljazeera, a celebrated Kenyan-Somali journalist Mohammed Adow, brought out how Kenyan somalis even after staying in the country for as long as they can remember (Their only home) are mishandled, condemned to have ochestrated, collectively punished and their rights violated by the same government that was suppose to give them protection. 

In a video that seems to have been recorded by one of the Kenya's security forces which was leaked to Social media, two Cushitic looking men are seen being harassed and beaten by one of the Kenya's security forces in a Forest. 

Although no amount of Mishandling can change one to diehard terrorist, this hurts the peace loving Somali-Kenyans

A video showing police harassment