We are still reeling from the attack on a Nairobi mall last
weekend.
Members of Al Shabaab, a terrorist organization based in
Somalia, attacked the Kenyan capital’s Westgate Mall with guns and grenades,
killing more than 70 and injuring dozens more in an attack that started on
Saturday and stretched out into a three-day siege of the complex.
Kenya, a historically strong US ally and now currently
involved in the a regional peace force inside Somali was always a logical
target.
The twin attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam in 1998 leap to mind, but subsequent
attacks on the coast in 2002, the kidnapping of tourists last year and an attack
on two churches in Garissa, where 17 were killed and injured another 50 people
leave no doubt that Kenya has always been a target.
What’s the point?
"The diabolic logic behind acts of terror is that by attacking innocent civilians, discontent against the targeted government will grow, even erupt, making whole countries ungovernable....
To what end?
Terrorists are mad men (and women, it turns out) in as far
as they do not operate within the norms of society, but to let our
understanding of them stop at that is a mistake. However unpalatable it may
sound terrorists actually have political agendas.
Analysis following
the Nairobi attack suggest that Al Shabaab, largely on the run in
Somalia having been flushed out of the key urban areas, are using this as
a last ditch attempt to raise morale among their number and to recruit more into their ranks.
This last reason is the scariest one.
The idea here is to provoke a knee jerk reaction by the
Kenyan security apparatus, to go out and hound and harass the country’s large
Somali population and business community. Their youth angry and frustrated at
the police would then be fertile ground for recruitment into the ranks of Al
Shabaab and their businessmen will be more likely to contribute to the cause.
On the hierarchy of power, violence is on the lowest rung.
Violence allows you to coerce people to do your bidding but more likely they
will not do it willingly. The next level of power comes with money. With money
you can have people do your bidding without coercion, even do it with zeal. And
the final level of power is information or knowledge, he who knows has power. The
scandal they say, is not the disparity in wealth between the “north” and the
“south” but the disparity not only in volume of knowledge but with the speed
and ease with which this knowledge can be transmitted in the north.
Going by this
"it is the weak who resort to power as a first resort...
With the terrorist the attacks on unarmed civilians then,
has to be at the bottom of the ladder of how low you can stoop in meting out
violence.
That maybe as it may but with the increased access to small
arms and munitions the modern day terrorist assumes a disproportionate threat
to our well being.
The challenge for our governments is how to deal with
terrorism.
Seeing as terrorists assume no form, until they strike, the
answer is not to beef up armour but to improve and strengthen intelligence,
information gathering capabilities.
This will give the ability to preempt attacks rather than
wait for them to occur and contain.
Easier said than done but governments have no choice.
Running rough shod over suspects or suspected communities will only be playing into the terrorists’ hands. The war against terror will take more brain than brawn.
