1. After Westgate: opportunities and challenges in the war against Al-Shabaab
- Author:
- Paul D. Williams
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- On 21 September 2013, fighters from the Harakat Al-Shabaab Mujahideen (Movement of the Warrior Youth) attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 67 people and wounding over 200 others. According to Kenya's parliamentary inquiry into the attack, it was conducted by four gunmen (three Somali nationals and a Norwegian citizen of Somali origin), all of whom died in the subsequent four-day siege. The inquiry, by the Joint Committee on Administration and National Security and Defence and Foreign Relations, listed Westgate as the 28th terrorist attack in the country since Kenyan forces intervened in Somalia in October 2011. It concluded that a confluence of factors had left Kenya particularly vulnerable to such attacks: its porous border with Somalia; endemic corruption and poor levels of preparedness among its security officials; youth radicalization (with over 500 Kenyan youths recruited into Al-Shabaab), the proliferation of small arms and light weapons; and the influx of more than 600,000 Somali refugees into Kenya. Overall, the inquiry lamented that despite relevant general information about an impending terror attack on such a target, there had been a 'nationwide systemic failure' on the part of numerous government departments, confusion among government agencies in responding to the attack, and disgraceful looting of premises within the mall by some Kenyan soldiers and police.
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Norway, Somalia, and Nairobi