Mohammed Omer Mulla

After close to four years of calm in urban areas, Al-Shabaab demonstrated its continued threat to peace in Kenya with the operation launched in an upscale apartment and restaurant complex in Nairobi. The gun, grenade and bomb assault will raise inevitable questions about why the country has been targeted successfully so many times over the last eight years. First, it is worth looking at some of the more positive aspects of Tuesday’s attack. Between 2011 and 2014, Al-Shabaab seemed to have succeeded in stretching the cord that holds Kenya together to the limits. The group deliberately sought to exploit the country’s ethnic and religious diversity and, in its propaganda, it highlighted these as offering it a chance of triggering sectarian strife. “Thank God Kenyan society is divided and facing ethnic clashes,” said one of the group’s ideologues, Sheikh Mohammed Dulyadeyn, in a video released in June 2014. UNITY He urged militants to increase their attacks in the country...

A Nairobi court has allowed police to continue holding five suspects arrested over the Dusit hotel attack for 30 days to allow detectives complete investigations. Milimani Law Courts Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Mutuku ordered their detention, arguing that the charges they are facing are serious and the investigating officer might be required to travel to various parts of the country. The suspects are: Joel Ng'ang'a Wainaina, Oliver Kanyago Muthee, Gladys Kaari Justus, Guleid Abdihakim and Osman Ibrahim. Two of the suspects were arrested on Wednesday morning during police raids in houses suspected to have been hideouts. One was arrested in Ruaka estate - on the outskirts of Nairobi - and the other in Eastleigh. Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti confirmed the arrests. The assault that took place on January 15 spilled over into the next day, leaving 21 people dead and more than 700 rescued. Condemning the attack during a press conference on W...

When the Somali extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for this week’s  19-hour siege  of a Nairobi complex that left at least 21 dead, it said the attack was “a response to the witless remarks of U.S. president, Donald Trump, and his declaration of al-Quds [Jerusalem] as the capital of Israel.”  Most of the victims of the attack were Kenyan, and the effects of trauma, tightened security and economic losses will also be mostly felt by Kenyans. But al-Shabab’s stated reason for the attack is a reminder that it comes amid an escalation in its battle for survival against a growing number of U.S. airstrikes, which are supported by Kenya. The U.S. military’s unmanned drones, based in Somalia and neighboring countries, conducted 47 strikes in 2018, up from 31 in 2017, according to U.S. Africa Command. The most recent U.S. strike was Jan. 8, and several in December  killed 62  al-Shabab fighters. The Trump administration has loosened the U.S. mili...

Hundreds were forced to flee the bloodshed at the DusitD2 hotel and business complex in Kenya's Nairobi on Tuesday. Some 29 injured people have been admitted to local hospitals, and Kenya's Red Cross said 20 are still missing. Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabab said it was behind the attack, which triggered a 19-hour security operation. President Uhuru Kenyatta said the siege ended with five jihadist attackers "eliminated". Kenya has been a target for al-Shabab since October 2011, when it sent its army into Somalia to fight the jihadist group. The BBC's Andrew Harding, in Nairobi, says cowering groups of civilians were escorted to safety by security forces throughout Tuesday night, amid sporadic bursts of gunfire and the boom of explosions that continued well beyond dawn.  Many had spent hours hiding in their offices, or in bathrooms. On the crowded street outside the large, upmarket complex, friends and relatives embraced those who emerged and  th...