Un warns Kenyan Terror group linked to Al-Shabaab plotting attacks

Well Well Good People,

This seems to be another copy and paste of DRC and Rwanda, between

DRC Congo Army with Tutsis M23 refugees from Rwanda.....These moves

are engineered and are very strategic.........When you see chest-thumbing,

be very worried..........Watch out who stand to loose.........Good People,

Unity is strength...........

Wake up from your deep slumber ......this Al-shabaab/Al-Qaeda is duplicate

of M23............Wake up!!!!

 

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

UN warns Kenyan terror group linked to Al-Shabaab plotting attacks

Updated Friday, July 26th 2013 at 22:45 GMT +3

 

By MALKHADIR M. MUHUMED

A Kenyan militia group linked to Al-Shabaab is fast becoming a threat to security in the Horn of Africa, a United Nations report reveals.

The group has allegedly made new contacts across East Africa, including recruitment of affiliates in Rwanda and Burundi, and plans to unleash terror in the region. The group sprung up after extra-judicial killings of suspected Al-Shabaab sympathisers in Kenya.

Al Shabaab, or Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, as the terror group is known in Somalia, remains a threat two years after the militants were driven out of Mogadishu. The 5,000-member group is believed to have the support of about 500 Kenyans of a group calling itself Al-Hijra (the migration) that has grown out of the Muslim Youth Centre.

This, despite the killing of a senior Al Shabaab leader who wrote a letter titled ‘Iko Matata’ complaining about the mistreatment of foreign fighters from Kenya.

The report names Islamist preacher Abubakar Shariff Ahmed ‘Makaburi’, a self-styled Al-Qaeda recruiter, as increasingly asserting his influence over Al Hijra. Makaburi, a Kenyan in his late 40s, was a close associate of the late Aboud Mohammad Rogo, who was shot dead in unclear circumstances in August last year. Both men were “designated for targeted measures” by a United Nations committee earlier that month for activities supporting terrorism.

Other active Al Hijra members that have since disappeared include Sylvester Opiyo alias Musa Osodo, Jeremiah Onyango Okumu and Steven Mwanzia Osaka aka Duda Black and Duda Brown, also disappeared around the same time.

A recent report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea said Al Hijra is “striving to exert its influence” after it suffered killings and disappearances of its members. Local human rights groups blame Kenya anti-terrorism units for this, but police have denied the claims.

Complex operations

“The setbacks… have impeded the threat capacity of Al-Shabaab in East Africa and affected the strategic-operational link between the two groups,” said the report. Despite recent battlefield losses, Al Shabaab retains control of the entire southern region of Middle Jubba, most of central and southern regions of Hiiraan, Bay and Bakol and sizable parts of Galgadud and Lower and Middle Shabelle regions.

Reports that the group is benefiting from trade through Kismayu allegedly facilitated by Kenya Defence Forces and business leaders raise fears that progress made in the war on terror may be eroded.

Corroborating information indicates that Al-Shabaab affiliates in Rwanda and Burundi are in contact with Al Hijra members and associates in Kenya, said the report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.

The group wants to “make use of its fighters returning from Somalia to conduct new and more complex operations and to strengthen its roots in the region”.

Al-Shabaab’s internal bickering and the loss of Kismayu have affected recruitment of new fighters by Al Hijra. The militants terror activities in Kenya have also declined, said the report. “One Al Hijra fighter claimed that… fellow combatants returning to Kenya had become anxious about the lack of effective coordination between Al-Shabaab and Al Hijra’s ‘Amir’ based in Somalia, Ahmad Iman Ali,” said the report.

The influence and leadership of Ahmad Iman, also Al-Shabaab’s representative for Kenya, inspired attacks by grenades and improvised explosive devices in the country. While this approach has had marginal success, both Al-Shabaab and Ahmad Iman have repeatedly called for sustained attacks regionally.

Possibly owing to its limited success and the violent approach to counter-terrorism taken by Kenyan security services, Al Hijra, in partnership with the Ansar Muslim Youth Centre in Tanzania, has sought operational direction and guidance since the latter part of last year from individuals with former ties to Al-Qaeda in East Africa and self-styled Al-Qaeda affiliates, including Makaburi and Briton Jermaine John Grant, now facing trial in a special court in Shanzu over terror-related offences.

Makaburi has exerted a growing influence over Al Hijra and is determined to redirect the group’s resources and manpower from hitting “soft targets” to conducting complex, large-scale attacks in Kenya on behalf and in support of Al-Shabaab, said the report.

Meanwhile, it added, Jermaine John Grant, confined in prison, has effectively provided assistance, albeit remotely, to ongoing plots involving both Al Hijra and Makaburi. Over the years, Al Hijra in Kenya and its Somalia-based fighters have proven adept at mobilising resources for Al-Shabaab activities in Somalia and the region.

Fight for territory

Al Shabaab continues to pose a regional and international threat, said the report released last week. The group has chosen to avoid fighting with foreign troops in the country, including Kenyans, in the hopes of picking up the fight for territory after the peacekeepers have been withdrawn.

The Monitoring Group says it believes the Al Shabaab’s military strength – about 5,000-strong force – “remains arguably intact in terms of operational readiness, chain of command, discipline and communication capabilities, in spite of its alleged financial constraints and the loss of control of Kismayu”.

 

UN report now faults KDF mandate under Amisom on terror war

Updated Saturday, July 27th 2013 at 00:20 GMT +3

 

By MALKHADIR M MUHUMED

The Kenya Defence Force’s ( KDF) integration into the African Union mission in Somalia is “more theoretical than practical”, a United Nations report says.

Monitors say the force appears to have a separate command and control, a fact that could explain recent frictions with Mogadishu.
But a spokesman for the AU peacekeepers in Somalia dismissed the allegations, saying “they are fully part of the mission”.
The report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea said KDF personnel initially failed to wear the insignia of Amisom -- although of late “some KDF vehicles and troops” displayed the sign in a concerted effort to demonstrate integration into Amisom”.
“The Monitoring Group continued to receive corroborating reports indicating that the operational presence of KDF in Amisom was more theoretical than practical,” said the report.
KDF Spokesman, Cyrus Oguna, defended the troops saying: “All Kenyan army troops in Somalia are under Amisom and wear the green helmet.”
The UN report released last week said the Kenyan government continued -- before and after integrating its army into Amisom-- to deploy its Air Force in Somalia, potentially violating the UN arms embargo in the troubled Horn of African nation.
Apart from three attack helicopters and nine utility helicopters, the UN Security Council did not authorise an air component of the AU force.
“The Monitoring Group has confirmed several reports regarding the apparent unilateral actions of the Kenya Defence Forces in Kismayu,” said the report.

In March, for instance, the group said its researchers and other UN staff were prevented from leaving the Kismayu airport.

Denied clearance

The report also said it had established that KDF’s commander for Sector 2, Brig Anthony M. Ngere and his subordinates in Kismayu as well as Ras Kamboni militia, have routinely denied clearance for Somalia officials visiting the city.
Ras Kamboni is the Somali force that fought alongside Kenya in its year-long push to take Kismayu.

Amisom spokesman, Col Ali Houmed, dismissed the matter as “a problem between the regional administration in Kismayu and the Somalia government” in Mogadishu.
Houmed said: “The Kenya army are Amisom when they are in Somalia,” adding that the Kenyan army commander in Somalia, Brig Ngere, reports directly to the force commander in Mogadishu.
“They’re part and parcel of Amisom. We are one and the same,” Houmed said. They’re fully part of the mission.”
On June 2 last year, Kenya signed a memorandum of understanding with the African Union to formally integrate KDF into the command and control structures of Amisom. But the UN experts say they had “encountered a degree of unwillingness on the part of KDF to clarify its status”.
Tension
The group also talks of tension between Somalia and Ethiopia over the situation in Kismayu, saying that Mogadishu has replaced governors in Bay and Hiiraan regions “with those less favourable to Ethiopia” and that Ethiopia’s army in those regions received limited cooperation from local administrations on security matters.
Ethiopian forces have recently withdrew from Baidoa city, stretching the capacity of Amisom.
Although Ethiopia prefers to retain command and control of its troops inside Somalia independent of Amisom, it is also seeking recognition and financial support from donors for its efforts against Al-Shabaab, said the report.
The group also accuses the KDF, along with Jubaland President Ahmed Madobe and his Ras Kamboni force, of taking “a unilateral decision to begin the export of charcoal from Kismayu in violation of the ( UN charcoal) ban.”
Somalia’s charcoal is exported to a number of Gulf state, especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The report says: “The scale of charcoal export from Somalia has increased by 140 per cent. If the current rate of production continues, charcoal exports in 2012-2013 will consume some 10.5 million trees and the area of deforestation will cover 1,750 square kilometres, which is larger than the city of Houston, Texas, in the United States.”
Revenue

Paradoxically, Al-Shabaab taxes trucks transporting charcoal to Kismayu as the group controls Badade district near the Kenyan border.

“Al-Shabaab has been generating some $ 675,000 to $1.5 million per month at the Buulo Xaaji checkpoint,” said the report. It concludes that the revenue the militant group now derives from its Kismayu and Barawe town exports, and the taxation of ground transportation, could likely exceed “the estimated $25 million it generated in charcoal revenues when it controlled Kismayu.”