A looming US drone strike inside Kenya

It is reported that the U.S. Africa Command (Africom) seeks authorization to conduct drone attacks inside Kenya, against the Somalia-based terrorist group Al-Shabab. If President Trump and the Defense Department approved the move, that could represent a significant escalation in U.S. military activities in a region already beset by a complex history of violence.

The request is reportedly a response to a January Al-Shabab attack on a US military base located in the Kenyan coastal county of Lamu (Camp Simpa, Manda Bay) that killed one American soldier and two U.S. Defense contractors. Approval of the authorization request would give the U.S. military the ability to conduct drone strikes in Lamu and Garissa, two-Muslim majority Kenyan counties that border Somalia.

Considering the history of security agencies’ human rights violations, drones usage risk further deepening historical grievances in the region. It also comes at a crucial moment for neighbouring Somalia, which is gearing up for general elections as well as the drawdown of an African Union peacebuilding mission in the country. 

The expansion of drone strikes into a new country would be a turning point in U.S. military action in the East and Horn of Africa region. To many analysts, this moves U.S. engagement closer to a forever series of wars, which have characterized post-9/11 military action in other parts of the world.

The target counties are at the center of Kenya’s counter-terrorism efforts. Since commencing, a military invasion of Somalia in 2011 to curb the threat of Al-Shabab, Kenya has conducted significant domestic counterterrorism operations in both Garissa, Lamu and Mandera counties.

Human rights groups in Kenya and beyond have accused the Kenyan Anti-Terror Police Unit of committing extrajudicial assassinations, enforced disappearances and torture. Al-Shabab then used Kenya’s government security practices as recruitment propaganda. In April 2015, one of the deadliest attacks in Kenya, after the 1998 US embassy bombing left 148 people, mostly students, dead at Garissa University College. In 2014, the group butchered at least 48 people in Mpeketoni town in Lamu County. However, counterterrorism efforts have thus far failed to address historical grievances and marginalization in northern and coastal Kenya. 

In 1963, on the eve of Kenya’s independence, there was a fierce debate about Northeastern Kenya preference to unite with Somalia instead of Kenya. Kenya’s independence leaders strongly rejected any proposals to split this area from Kenya, which led to an insurgency. This region has a predominantly ethnically Somali population, which fought to secede from Kenya, with the Somalia government’s help. The new Kenyan government reacted by declaring a State of Emergency in late December 1963, just two weeks after independence. Insurgency and counterinsurgency in Kenya’s Shifta War lasted for at least four years.

Early this year, some of the politicians, religious leaders and elders from Northeastern region crossed to Somali for a secret meeting with the Somalia leadership, the details of that visit remain classified. This invited suspicion from the Kenyan government; the National intelligence and Criminal investigation directorate summoned the members of parliament who attended the meeting, who maintained that the visit was a peace courtesy.

In a recent state visit to France, Kenya's president Uhuru Kenya in an interview with France24 said his government is not aware of any drone strike in Kenya. Mr Kenyatta added that he would not sanction any drone strike on the Kenya soil. Conducting drone strikes in these areas would probably add another complex layer to an already fragile region.

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Ruzeki is a blogger at SHADOW WOKA NEWS, specializing in politics, internet culture and propaganda, as well as writing about climate change and other things science-related.

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