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Today's edition of the East African Standard claims that the Nairobi bomber was possibly targeting the airport. This is an assumption from the fact that the Citi Hopper that (the man said to be Arab origin) was intending to board shortly before the explosion went off, was headed to the airport.
My personal opinion is that this is highly unlikely. If you were planning to do something at the airport, would you take a matatu there? That is highly unlikely. The whole purpose seems to have been to detonate the bomb inside the matatu. That is what bombs inside public commuter vehicles are usually supposed to do. Many more lives would have been lost had the man boarded the Citi Hopper. In fact chances of anybody surviving inside would have been close to nil. As it was by some miracle the bomb went off in an open space with various obstacles around which limited the number of casualties. (I agree with Phil—one of our regulars here in Kumekucha when he says it was a miracle that the bomb killed only one person). But whatever it was, it was a powerful explosive device because at least one building front in the area was badly damaged.
My view is contradicted by an alleged police report that I have published in the next post. Please read it and tell us what you think.
What is it with terrorists and Kenya? Why Kenya? How do we come into whatever quarrel or cause they are fighting? Of the 5 serious terrorist attacks that have happened in East Africa 4 have been on Kenyan soil (with 3 in Nairobi). The 4 in Kenya were the Norfolk Hotel Bombing in the late 70s, the US embassy (had the highest casualties where over 200 Kenyans lost their lives), Kikambala hotel in Mombasa and the latest incident. Kenyans should be very angry with these guys. What share do we have in the United States government? Is Kenya a colony of the US?
Terrorists, give us a break, how are we involved?
Term life insurance and one-man-show online enterprises that make $500,000 monthly.
With a full plate of everlasting bad news on his dinner table, the last thing Kibaki needs is dessert/salad in the form of a sophisticated terror attack. The belittling of the attack and the downplaying of its ramifications is in line with aloofness of the head of state. That being said, it does not appear these ‘suicide bombers’ are of the gist of their compatriots in Gaza. I’m not quite sure they were determined to end their lives as well. From what I’ve read of eye witness reports, it seems they were a bit fidgety as opposed to the confident ‘Abdala of the East’ with the fatal belt of death.
ReplyDeleteEither way, the primary goal of such idiots is to conjure grief in multiples of ten. The crowded bus seems a more likely target. With that, we must remember that the ultimate goal of terrorism is to transform a peace loving society into one of perpetual fear and suspicion. This altered state of mind can be achieved by blowing up a grenade in the middle of an empty Uhuru park…. in the night. Whereas these extremists will rejoice and swim in a river of blood (Kenyan blood I must add), they will be uncontrollably ecstatic on the day Kenyans will choose to walk to work rather than board a bomb prone matatu.
In essence, the fact that most Kenyans went ahead and traveled to work in Matatus this morning is the first step in winning this battle. Let us not cower.
My prayer is that all of us are wrong and the blast had no political smell. Trust Kenyans to do anything and a smart one at the expense of a FEW SOULs would just suffice to divert attention from the Mungiki hunt and political pressuure. How I wish that was far fetched and a dream but I fear for the truth. whatever it is we don't need the terrosists within our borders, a single life is just one too many.
ReplyDeleteChris, if Kenya Police expect total co-operation and information from the public in it efforts to combat crime, then they are going to have to be intelligent and transparent themselves. Following Monday's blast at City Gate Cafe, and subsequent press conferences by Police spokesman, it seems pretty obvious that police want to deviate the public thinking, sabotage the tourism industry and in the process damage foreign relations. I wonder why?
ReplyDeleteDoes it occur to the GoK that it is actually causing more harm than good when it alledges that the bombers were headed for JKIA? Is the GoK trying to justify US Department of State travel advisories, and by extension admitting its own inability to effectively secure airports and other public places? If the GoK must protect the business interest of an individual, they may as well play ignorant to any knowledge of the destination or nationality of the bomber. After all, dead men tell no tales!
The nationality of the bomber is completely immaterial at this point in time. Infact, its an affirmation of what I have been saying to you all along, shambolic foreing policy! If the GoK had any little care about foreign relations, do you think it is in Kenya's national interest to publicly name nationalities when crimes are committed, or would they rather make use of diplomatic channels to obtain additional intelligence and keep respective embassies informed? Do you think the Rwandese Ambassador is happy by the wrongful arrest of its citizens and the negative publicity it has generated? On the other hand, are these allegations helping the efforts of the transitional government in Somalia - who have a major headache themselves in Mogadishu? Do we not have consideration for the welfare of the hundreds of thousands of Kenyan somali citizens? When will this segregation of the "Northern Frontier District" stop?
Lastly Chris, big or small explosion is neither here nor there. It is clearly a very poor attempt of pacifying a very apprehensive poupulation. Infact, is this actually not a challenge to the terrorist to try something more devastating next time?
I would rather the police keep their mouths shut instead of trying to make a fool of Kenyans.
Chris, it's Citi Hoppa, not Hopper!
ReplyDeletePhil you have struck the jugular with your observation that we don't have any foreign policy to write home about. Actually the tragedy is quite simple. We have a civil service and political leadership who are too busy concentrating on the internal infanticide of domestic politics. They have always thought of how to stab each other, steal the public coffers, spread propaganda etc. In other words myopic in-ward looking leadership. Do you remember Murungaru's gaffee sometime back when he was the security minister when he publicly annonced that Kenya was under terrorist threat? Did he consider the repurcussions of such carelessness? No!!!
ReplyDeleteAs a consequence intelligence resources are diverted to cater for the short-term interests of these moronic politicians. There is nobody who is thinking about the regional or global interests of Kenya. Nobody is thinking about how to put our agenda forward and assert Kenyan interests. All the fools are busy with ODM, Narc-K and other silly politics.
Actually we lost our real leaders. Look at Tuju and that Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You would think they would interface with Ali and the NSIS so as to come up with more sensible press releases. Instead they have left the police to divulge info that is injurious to our national reputation.
We don't have a co-ordinated response (policy and political) to external threats, we are too busy fighting one another.When shall we wake up to the fact that Kenya comes first and we need to protect our country, by whatever means necessary. Bethwell Kiplagat had the idea but alas he never got the opportunity to clean up that Foreign ministry. Ouko would also have done a better job.