Ending The Radicalization
"This is an example of what parents can do in the fight against terrorism. The father reported to us the moment he thought his son was lured into terrorism."
"Parents are able to detect such, but most of them never come forward with information on suspicious activity of their children."
"[Abdullah was] in his early twenties. He was a good and educated young man who completed university in 2013, but was lured into terrorism."
Mwenda Njoka, spokesman, Interior Ministry, Kenya
"Our message to you will be written not with words, but with the blood of your people."
"Dig their graves and prepare their coffins from now."
Al Shabab website statement
The parents who came forward to report their son missing a year ago were not just any parents. They were Kenyans whose son, they suspected at the time, had joined with Al Shabab, comprised mostly of Somalian jihadists linked with al-Qaeda. His father was in fact a high-placed local government official, a government chief in Mandera County, bordering Somalia. And the son of that official was a university-educated law-school graduate.
So much for education enlightening people, enabling them to use their intelligence to ferret out threats to society by malignant movements whose purpose is to instill fear and loathing in people through vicious acts of heart-stopping violence. But it would appear that this 'good and educated' young man found his purpose in life by becoming a member of an ferociously Islamist jihadist group.
Abdirahim Mohammed Abdullahi was one of the four gunmen, explosives strapped to their bodies, armed with AK47s who shot to death 148 university students at Garissa University College. His parents worked along with police attempting to track his whereabouts, to little avail. And he surfaced where his parents might least have expected their educated, bright son so recently out of university to be: in a deadly planned raid against other university students who happened to be Christian.
Five people were arrested on suspicion of having a connection with the atrocity, four of whom were attempting to cross the Somali border. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta vowed to bring those involved in the massacre to justice. The country's security forces have leads on other accomplices in the attack. Kenyans, however, want to know why it was that those same security forces took hours to respond to the raid on the university.
All the more so when foreign intelligence had given forewarning of such an attack being imminent. The presence of the terrorist group is not a new phenomenon; they have pursued their deadly predations to terrorize and force a transition to Islamic law in Somalia and Kenya since 2006. Kenya had sent troops to Somalia in 2011 after tourists and aid workers had been targeted, leading Al Shabab to intensify their attacks to include bars and churches.
Before this latest atrocity, the attack on the Nairobi Westgate Mall leaving 67 dead should have alerted the government to the critical situation on their doorstep. Now the suspected organizer of the Garissa attack, Mohammed Mohamud Kuno (isn't that taking the Prophet's name in blasphemous vein?) has a substantial bounty on his capture in recognition of his ongoing threat to civil society.
It is a step in the right direction, however, after President Kenyatta made an appeal to families, religious and community leaders to coordinate, cooperate and join with government intelligence to do their part to end the radicalization of Kenyan youth, by providing information and suspicions to the authorities.
Labels: Atrocities, Islamists, Jihad, Kenya
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, April 07, 2015
<< Home