Insecurity: Need for brave steps in 2015

BY ANDREW FRANKLIN

Kenya is facing significant existential threats, both from within and without its borders. In 2013 and 2014, the Government expanded the domestic security role of the Kenya Defence Force (KDF) initially to supplement paramilitary elements of the National Police Service, but it increasingly seems to be replacing the disorganised, overwhelmed, underequipped and badly trained Administration Police.

By using the KDF as a sort of internal fire brigade to fill the widening gaps in domestic law and order, government is unwittingly delaying the full implementation of the National Police Service Act, 2011 despite allocating funds in excess of $1.2 billion (Sh110 billion) to the Internal Security docket. The failure to recruit new police personnel will further exacerbate problems of domestic insecurity well into 2016 as numbers of uniformed officers continue to drop due to normal attrition, casualties suffered during operations against criminals or owing to terrorist attacks, as well as punitive disciplinary actions.

The ongoing commitment of nearly 4,000 Kenya Defence Forces personnel to the African Mission in Somalia (Amisom) – to support the Federal Government of Somalia in Mogadishu – further reduces the defence forces’ deployment options. The failure to prioritise KDF roles and missions will stretch its resources, diminish its combat power and erode morale and discipline within its ranks. Furthermore the withdrawal of the Sierra Leone Battalion (SLBat) from Kismayo – and from Amisom – means that the KDF elements already deployed to Sector Two will need to be reorganised and temporarily relocated to fill this unexpected shortfall.

Authorised AMISOM personnel numbers have not been affected by the withdrawal of SLBat although their replacement is still undetermined; the SLBat scheduled to rotate into Kismayo was blocked by FGS objections over possible Ebola contamination. The GOK cannot simply “top up” its existing troop strength in Somalia because KDF numbers and combat capabilities are neither infinite nor inexhaustible. The KDF’s failure to develop a comprehensive organised reserve structure in line with guidance contained in The Kenya Defence Force Act, 2012 leaves this country’s full time armed forces dangerously over extended to the detriment of troops’ morale and combat effectiveness.

After Al  Shabaab

Although Al Shabaab in Somalia has been displaced by Amisom from Barawe on the Indian Ocean and any number of minor market towns and villages along major roads it has suffered nearly no loss in combat power. Al Shabaab continues to withdraw in good order before militarily superior Amisom troops; Al Shabaab suffers few documented casualties and minimal losses of equipment and heavy weapons. Al Shabaab continues to control vast swathes of rural South Central Somalia from where it draws recruits, caches supplies, including munitions, and conducts its planning and logistics operations.

Following the launch of “Operation Linda Nchi” in October 2011, Al Shabaab ramped up its low intensity war in all three counties in Kenya’s north; Al Shabaab has tapped into long smouldering popular discontent in Mandera, Wajir and Garissa and has extended its insurgency from Somalia into these restive counties.

Government has steadfastly refused to recognise the true nature of the conflict in these three counties – that is, a spreading insurgency rather than mere terrorism or criminal activity. Al Shabaab has increased its recruiting activities throughout Kenya, targeting alienated youth of all backgrounds and religious persuasions. Al Shabaab’s strategy is to play upon the socio-economic fault lines in Kenya with the long term objective of extending its de facto control over much of the area bordering Somalia including strengthening its hold on 500,000 refugees in the four Dadaab Camps.

The establishment of liberated zones along the border will provide sanctuaries from which Al Shabaab can prosecute its war against the FGS in Mogadishu and its Amisom supporters; the position of the KDF in Jubaland will become untenable, necessitating its withdrawal from Somalia. Al Shabaab is not fighting to overthrow the governments in Nairobi, Kampala, Djibouti and Addis Ababa, nor is it seeking to establish a caliphate over the entire Horn of Africa. Rather its immediate objectives are to displace the FGS from Mogadishu and its Somali allies or neutrals from elsewhere in Somalia – including Somaliland – as well as to drive out all foreign forces presently occupying urban and peri-urban areas in southern and central Somalia. Although some important elements within Al Shabaab hold strong internationalist and global jihadist views and aspirations, the organisation’s primary focus is entirely domestic and nationalist in its immediate orientation.

Al Shabaab suffered significant tactical losses to its leadership ranks in 2014; its much misunderstood withdrawals from Barawe and other coastal towns, however, had very little effect on its fighting strength or combat capabilities. Al Shabaab wisely avoids set piece battles with the well trained and better equipped conventional forces under Amisom; the Somali National Army (SNA) or clan militias notionally supporting the FGS have yet to independently conduct any significant operations against the insurgents. In 2015, Al Shabaab will retain its ability to conduct terrorist attacks against both hard and soft targets in areas nominally under FGS/Amisom control; their ability to wage low intensity warfare in much of South Central Somalia as well as in the border areas of Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Lamu Counties is undiminished and will grow ever stronger as time passes.

Discontent and radicalisation at the Coast

Heavy-handed GOK security operations continue to radicalise already disaffected and alienated youth in and around Mombasa as well as in Malindi; the sporadic swoops on mosques and allegations of extrajudicial killings by the ATPU and state sponsored “disappearances” or illegal detentions are ineffective in curbing rising insecurity.

The extended curfew in Lamu County imposed in July 2014 has devastated the tourism and fishing sectors in that county, pushing even more people into joblessness; the curfew has failed to produce any tangible results (such as dead or captured Al Shabaab fighters).

Security operations seem to have curbed the lawful activities of the Mombasa Republican Council. MRC’s organising and recruitment activities have been disrupted and driven underground. Recent poorly organised attacks on the KDF in Nyali and an AP camp in Malindi point to a worrying trend in 2015; there is no reason to doubt that Al Shabaab will take advantage of discontent in Lamu to expand insurgency into that County – especially along its border with Somalia. Meanwhile mosque closures, mass arrests, extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances of radical Muslims will further reinforce the notion that the GOK has an anti-Islamic, anti-Coast agenda which will further affect intelligence gathering by agents of the state.

As the MRC’s effectiveness decreases, its more radical elements will gravitate towards Al Shabaab. There will definitely be an increase in “lone wolf” and ad hoc gang attacks on security forces’ facilities throughout the counties in the Coast, as well as on churches, “moderate” mosques and their leaderships and on foreign associated commercial enterprises (e.g. hotels, casinos, banks and transportation facilities).

Mandera, Wajir and Garissa: Isolation or redemption? How to stop the bleeding

The massacres in Mandera, the attendant panic among Christian residents and the insurgency spreading along the whole of the Kenyan border with Somalia will not be stopped until government is seen to be taking action to close the porous border and to permanently station paramilitary police elements accompanied by air support by GSU officers in strategic locations to protect population centres and restore normal government services. The KDF needs to visibly deploy its armoured cavalry and airborne units initially to the vicinity of Mandera and, thereafter, to forward expeditionary combat bases oriented towards the Al Shabaab enemy attacking at will into Kenya from Somalia.

Hard decisions must be made to immediately allocate sufficient funds to the sort of infrastructure that has not been developed since 1963. This infrastructure now includes by necessity a comprehensive border control plan including physical and electronic barriers, four to six multi-agency reception centres and the declaration of an exclusion zone at least one kilometre wide inside Kenya along the entire internal border.

Ultimately the Kenya government needs to reposition properly trained, well organised and adequately equipped NPS elements co-located with KDF units and National Intelligence Service (NIS) personnel in a purpose built combined arms joint operations base in the vicinity of Wajir.

The objective will be to defeat Al Shabaab at the border and to prevent the insurgency from spreading from the NEP into Lamu County and throughout Coast.

What must be done to get the security act together in 2015

Kenya needs to re-evaluate its commitment to Amisom; government should negotiate a withdrawal from Sector Two into positions within Kenya from where the KDF can reorganise to maximise its offensive capabilities. KDF can continue to support pro-FGS forces in Jubaland with Quick Reaction Forces able to strike across our border with Somalia.

Whether within Amisom or not, government must act in the best interest of its own national security; propping up the FGS in Mogadishu should be a lower priority to defending Kenya’s border. In this case, these are now mutually exclusive options, and Kenya must choose the best course to ensure national security. The longer hard decisions are deferred and bold aggressive actions delayed, the stronger Al Shabaab grows. Time is often on the side of determined and focused insurgents.

The National Police Service Act 2011 must be implemented in its entirety so that government has an organised police service to fight crime, combat terrorism and counter insurgency. In essence we need to follow all of our existing laws in order to see what works and what needs to be fixed.

Kenya needs to accept that it faces a serious, nearly overwhelming threat in internal insecurity which can only be addressed through modernising its security operations, and looking out for its own national interests. We live in a dangerous neighbourhood and our relative strengths are steadily dissipating