generalspeaking

The Islamist Appeal

"Jihad is to fight your enemy on the battlefield ... but to kill innocent people doing shopping for their wives and children and spouses and family members, that is far away from jihad.
"That's not Islam. No human being can justify that.
"All these young people that are planning to join these people should know this is definitely not dignified. If they think they're doing service to Islam, they are far from that. There's no righteousness in killing children and defenceless women."
Said Rageah, formerly imam at Abu Huraira Mosque, Toronto

"It is a place where tourists from across the world come to shop, where diplomats gather. It is a place where Kenya's decision-makers go to relax and enjoy themselves. Westgate is a place where there are Jewish and American shops. So we have to attack them."
Sheik Abdulazia Abu Muscab, al-Shabab military spokesman

The Kenyan administration did not exactly cover themselves with glory in this violent situation. Their constant updates assuring Kenyans and the watching world that they had everything under control, along with their condemnations of the terrorist attack portrayed them as inefficient in their response and somewhat less than capable of bringing the carnage to an end. Their statements that there were no more hostages to be rescued, later to be retracted, left the impression of awkward ineptitude.

On the other hand, it's questionable whether the response in Mumbai to the 2008 attack which also took days to resolve and even greater numbers of victims, was handled much better. It seems clear enough that the kind of asymmetrical warfare that jihadis practise is difficult to handle. All the more that the soft targets that they select lend themselves to the success of large numbers of obliterated lives in brutal bloodshed.

The attackers are immune from empathy, they are psychotic, high on the illusion of being favoured by Islam for advancing its agenda of conquest. Their reward dangles before them, visions of ascending -- like the Prophet Mohammad whose legacy of violence they are, after all, emulating but with high-powered rifles and grenades, not scimitars -- heavenward, and on to Paradise where all those compliant virgins await them.

Kenyan authorities announced the death of three of the attackers, that several more were wounded and that they had, before the entire catastrophe had come to a conclusion, arrested ten people for 'questioning'. "We're in control of Westgate", announced Kenya's Interior Ministry on Twitter, well before they were, in actual fact. It's still unknown whether there were a dozen or 20 al-Shebab jihadis involved in he attack.

For a relative handful of people a lot of damage can be inflicted upon unarmed, vulnerable people, the last thing on their minds being that they lethally endangered their lives and those of their children by embarking on a pleasant day of shopping, dining and entertainment. A number of security officials in Nairobi claim that several women may have been included among the terrorists -- escaping after the initial attack stage.

Later that statement was elaborated upon by Kenya's Chief of Defence Forces, General Julius Karangi who stated all the attackers were male, though some of them were camouflaged in women's clothing. Burqas may not be attractive but they do conceal much and have been used in the past, elsewhere, to portray impressions that will allow those using them to evade security.

The impression that al-Shabab has been struggling as a result of infighting and battlefield losses to African Union troops may yet prevail. This may represent a last-gasp spectacular by the terrorist group. On the other hand, its success in the number of lives taken, the wide circle of the injured, the impact on foreigners, diplomats, the social elite of Kenya may have wider repercussions, perhaps not yet fully understood.

A success in wreaking havoc, huge destruction, and even larger international coverage may be the most useful enterprise that al-Shabab may yet have undertaken, in bringing universal notoriety to its presence and purposeful cunning, its masterly capability in having a relative handful of armed jihadis hold off all the police, security and military responses that the government of Kenya was capable of throwing at the situation, only to be met with a stand-off lasting four days.

The fact that there were present at the event, aiding the Kenyan authorities, military experts from other countries, like Israel and the United States, will only add lustre to the increased reputation of al- Shebab. Victorious in large measure, against such seemingly insurmountable odds. More heroes, more martyrs, come one, come all.

The end effect may just be a successful recruiting situation -- where previously a trickle of European and North American Somali immigrant youth flowed through to Somalia to join al-Shabab, perhaps now a veritable flood of eager recruits may result, anxious to join a successfully adventurous militant group that has proven its jihadi mettle.

Labels: Atrocities, Islamism, Kenya, Somalia, Terrorists

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 25, 2013