Death Squads in Kenya’s Shadow War on Shabaab Sympathizers - Polidicks

[url]http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/06/death-squads-in-kenya-s-shadow-war-on-shabaab-sympathizers.html[/url] [IMG]http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2014/04/06/death-squads-in-kenya-s-shadow-war-on-shabaab-sympathizers/jcr:content/image.crop.800.500.jpg/1396755891583.cached.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE]The United States supports Nairobi’s fight against terrorists, but it’s getting very ugly. MOMBASA, Kenya—“The state wants to kill me,” the 53-year-old jihadist Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, better known as “Makaburi,” told me in late February. He said he was sure that one day he’d be gunned down by “unknown assailants” on a street in Mombasa. That’s how so many controversial Islamic leaders have died in Kenya in recent months, he said. And then, earlier this week, the prophecy came true. On Tuesday, “unknown assailants” gunned down Makaburi as he was leaving a courthouse outside Mombasa. Makaburi was waiting by the side of the road along with four other preachers when a vehicle pulled up and sprayed them with bullets. Witnesses reportedly saw Makaburi’s body, swaddled in a white kanzu, or robe, lying partly in a ditch. His colleague Sheikh Bohero also was killed. Young men in the neighborhood told a local reporter that the two shooters were dressed in white kanzus, too, suggesting they were Muslims, and perhaps known to Makaburi and the others. But few in Kenya credit that possibility. The record of murders in recent months provides ample indication that a dirty war is being waged. Its evident purpose is to exterminate and intimidate people believed to be associated with the Al Shabaab movement in neighboring Somalia. For several reasons, those carrying it out may believe they have at least the tacit support of the United States, and, as often happens with dirty wars and death squad operations, this murderous campaign appears be galvanizing the opposition it aims to destroy. Makaburi (the nickname means grave digger in Swahili) preached at the Musa mosque in Mombasa, which is considered an incubator of radicalism, and Makaburi recruited fighters there for Al Shabaab, which has developed close ties with Al Qaeda. On Sunday, February 2, security forces raided the mosque for hosting what the police described as a “jihad convention.” They stormed the building, firing tear gas and live rounds in a raid that resulted in 129 arrests and eight deaths, including that of a policeman. Before that, two other clerics associated with the place had died in a hail of bullets. When Makaburi and I talked in February, he claimed that the others had been “assassinated” in “retaliation” for last year’s attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall, in which members of Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for killing at least 67 civilians and injuring hundreds. But the killings started before that, as one radical imam after another has been murdered or disappeared. Religious leaders say Kenyan security forces are targeting them unfairly for persecution if not indeed for summary execution, but the police argue they have clear intelligence linking many of the local preachers to Somali terrorists. Makaburi told me when I saw him that he thought the only reason he was still alive was that Kenya feared domestic unrest. Some of the “unknown assailant” murders have led to bloody rioting. But whoever killed him seems to have thought the risk worth taking, and days after the shooting the reaction is still muted. On the day we met, Makaburi was as welcoming and relaxed as he could be. Our three-hour interview took place in his cockpit-sized apartment in Mombasa’s run-down Majengo district, which has been the epicenter of recent violence. Around him he’d arrayed a desktop computer, a wall-mounted plasma TV with images of Muslims he said the police had tortured, miniature copies of the Qur’an, and a few creature comforts: an industrial-size bag of mini chocolate bars, and tubs of Blue Band margarine. Behind Makaburi’s head was pinned a black flag with the profession of faith, the shahada, written on it: “There is no God but God and Mohammed is his messenger” and, beneath it, a single primitively drawn sword. “Don’t worry, I am not going to suck your blood,” Makaburi assured me. I’d been struggling to cover my hair with a scarf to use as a hijab. He asked if it were bothering me. “Don’t wear it if you don’t want,” he said. “Pretending to be something you’re not is disrespecting yourself. Just be yourself.” The genial imam made an interesting contrast with the image of him painted by the United States, the United Nations and Kenyan authorities. A 2012 U.S. Treasury report blocking the assets of several people suspected of supporting Al Shabaab closely mirrors language also adopted by the United Nations Security Council (PDF), and it reads like a ringing indictment of Makaburi: “He provides material support to extremist groups in Kenya and elsewhere in East Africa. Through his frequent trips to al-Shabaab strongholds in Somalia, including Kismaayo, he has been able to maintain strong ties with senior al-Shabaab members,” the U.S. report said. Makaburi “also engaged in the mobilization and management of funding for al-Shabaab,” he “has preached at mosques in Mombasa that young men should travel to Somalia, commit extremist acts, fight for al-Qa’ida, and kill U.S. citizens.” He was “a leader of a Kenya-based youth organization in Mombasa with ties to al-Shabaab” and “acted as recruiter and facilitator for al-Shabaab in the Majengo area of Mombasa.” Some of the accusations, Makaburi told me, “are bullshit—like ‘committing extremist acts’ and ‘financing terror.’” He pulled out a desk drawer and removed a few filthy currency notes. “This is all I have—640 Kenya shillings,” which would be less than $10. “I don’t have enough to fund a reporter, let alone a terrorist organization.” But then he went on. Some of the accusations “are correct,” he said. He made no apology for recruiting young men to wage jihad in Somalia. "Radicalizing the youths is the only direction to go when the Kenyan government won’t allow the constitution to protect them and when police are killing sheikhs and imams extrajudicially,” said Makaburi. “Are we supposed to take this lying down?” The accusation that Makaburi encouraged young men to kill Americans touched a nerve—and did not elicit a denial. “Let me ask you,” he said, “Americans are invading other people’s lands, taking them prisoners, renditioning them and torturing them. Raping and killing innocent women and children is not allowed in warfare.” The argument is boilerplate Al Qaeda, but many people in developing countries, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, find it persuasive. When the post-9/11 Global War on Terror waged by the Bush administration was at its height, Kenya became an important player in American eyes. Since 2003 Kenya has received extensive aid from the State Department’s anti-terrorism assistance fund and a program now known as the Partnership for Regional East Africa Counterterrorism, or PREACT. Among its objectives, according to the State Department, “It uses law enforcement, military, and development resources to achieve its strategic objectives, including reducing the operational capacity of terrorist networks.” Things intensified when Kenya invaded Somalia in 2011 in an operation called Linda Nchi (Swahili for “Protect the Country”), ostensibly in reaction to kidnappings of tourists in northern Kenya. It was considered inevitable that Al Shabaab would try to strike back on Kenyan territory. Al Shabaab’s ideological and military leaders regrouped and began recruiting Kenyans to fight in Somalia and build support in Kenya. This was where Makaburi’s work became important. The July 2012 U.N. report on Shabaab-related activity identified a homegrown Kenyan group called al-Hijra under the leadership of the charismatic Sheikh Aboud Rogo and Makaburi. After those published reports a growing number of clerics and imams were killed or—in human rights parlance—“forcefully disappeared.” In May 2012 blind cleric Mohammed Kassim and fellow hardline cleric Samir Khan were traveling to Manjengo when men in a white Toyota van stopped them by the side of the road. The pair had been charged with possession of illegal firearms and recruitment of youths to Al Shabaab, but not convicted, just the kind of situation that tends to precede extrajudicial killings. Khan’s mutilated body was found in Voi, some 150 miles from Mombasa. Kassim’s body has not been found, and if he is alive his whereabouts are unkown. On August 27, 2012, one month after the U.N. report was published, “unidentified assailants” gunned down Rogo as he drove his wife home from a Mombasa hospital. Weeks before his assassination the sheikh had contacted human rights groups saying that he feared for his life, but they were unable to help him. Rogo’s death sparked days of rioting in Mombasa. Young men took to the streets, hurled grenades and burned churches. “It’s difficult to say who killed Rogo,” says Jonathan Horowitz, the legal representative with Open Source Foundation’s National Security and Counterterrorism Justice unit, funded by philanthropist George Soros. “But when you look at circumstantial evidence, the pattern of events, the modus operandi, and the audacity with which the killing took place, it all points to the hand of the state.” After Rogo died, Makaburi was his natural successor. “He was more than a brother to me,” Makaburi told me, and Makaburi was outraged at what he regarded as a US-government-funded extermination project: “I am the one who is accused of radicalizing when it’s the police who are radicalizing the Muslim youth by killing us.” ... When I met with Makaburi in his little apartment, he seemed completely resigned to his fate. He had been born in Mombasa and brought up there. His father, who worked in a box factory, was fixing a fan one day at home and got electrocuted. “He died when I was a child still crawling,” said Makaburi. Death happens. Life has strange twists. As he and his brothers grew up they took different paths. In fact, one of his brothers works for the Kenyan intelligence service, he told me. “Sheik Rogo used to say my mother was fair: she gave one son to Obama and the other to Osama.” Then Makaburi said, simply, “I am waiting to be killed.” And so he was. [/QUOTE] more at the article, also TLDR, the US is funding kenya in its fight against terrorism, except some of the means by which kenya is fighting it, its actually making shit worse, by pissing off the population, and killing people who are unrelated to the entire thing, and the US continues to claim it will support kenya.

Please NSFW that Kenya is one fucked up place.

[QUOTE=timothy80;44530227]Please NSFW that Kenya is one fucked up place.[/QUOTE] Is there anywhere in Africa that isn't?

[QUOTE=timothy80;44530227]Please NSFW that Kenya is one fucked up place.[/QUOTE] i did put a NSFW tag on the thread.

Contra affair 2.0: except now no one gives a fuck.

[QUOTE='[sluggo];44530282']Is there anywhere in Africa that isn't?[/QUOTE] Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria?

the main guy they're talking about in the article doesn't seem exactly innocent though. not that that means he should be shot in the street by unmarked gunmen

[QUOTE=Wizards Court;44530506]i did put a NSFW tag on the thread.[/QUOTE] People actually look at the tags?

[QUOTE=Lachz0r;44531045]the main guy they're talking about in the article doesn't seem exactly innocent though. not that that means he should be shot in the street by unmarked gunmen[/QUOTE] which is why this is a decent and unbiased article, which is what journalists should strive to write if this were an article about a disgruntled civilian, I'd not have read it as in depth as I did with a 53 year old jihadist talking of the situation

Well, this is what happens when you outsource. It was a similar situation in Somalia several years ago, where there was relatively stable Islamist control until the CIA and JSOC moved in and started handing cash bounties out to anyone who brought them Muslim heads. Same story of gunmen going around murdering anyone even vaguely connected with the Islamists. It's basically why Al-Shabaab exists in the first place. No tears being shed over dead Muslims in the US, though. 13 years since 9/11 and most of us still haven't figured out that all Muslims are not terrorists.

[QUOTE=Masterofstars;44531013]Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria?[/QUOTE] Nah Nigeria is fucked right now. So, really fucking funnily, the countries with the least black people?

Going back a few years Kenya was pretty common holiday destination. I've known at least two people who've holidayed there

[QUOTE=Atlascore;44532688]North Africa has practically nothing to do with the rest of Africa, it's basically an extension of the middle east.[/QUOTE] Can Americans pls stop talking about geography. Pls

[QUOTE=Allah;44533201]Can Americans pls stop talking about geography. Pls[/QUOTE] You're just mad since you're not in Europe. Turks. The lot of them.

[QUOTE=Paul McCartney;44533205]You're just mad since you're not in Europe. Turks. The lot of them.[/QUOTE] Russia ain't Europe either, considering most of their landmass is located in Asia.

[QUOTE=Masterofstars;44531013]Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria?[/QUOTE] Morocco is probably the only one of those which is relatively stable, despite it recently cracking down on Syria-linked terrorist cells. Algeria has seen sectarian based violence in recent days, South Africa remains one of the most violent countries in the world and Nigeria has seen huge bloodshed at the hands of Boko Haram..

[QUOTE=Masterofstars;44531013]Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria?[/QUOTE] Wasn't Nigeria dealing with Islamist extremists and terrorists? [B]Edited:[/B] Yeah, what butt2089 mentioned I think compared to most black African countries, Ghana appears to be pretty "stable"