Nairobi launched a cross-border incursion to flush out rebels from its porous frontier area after a series of kidnappings of foreigners in Kenya by gunmen thought to be linked to the Al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab.
Officials in Kenya, the region’s biggest economy, say the operation into its anarchic neighbor is needed to protect its multi-million dollar tourism industry and reputation as a relatively stable investment destination.
“The military response on al Shabaab will not affect tourism activities in the country owing to a raft of security measures already in place to secure all tourist activities,” Kenyan Tourism Minister Najib Balala said in a statement.
“Kenya will not be cowed by threats from al Shabaab and will continue to fight in a bid to avert any further threat to the country’s stability.”
But Kenya’s troops, backed by Somali government forces, have found it difficult to make much progress through torrential rains and heavy, muddy soil.
On Wednesday, a Kenyan military spokesman said the army had secured three towns. Al Shabaab said they had seen Kenyan troops in the towns of Taabto, Qoqani and near the border town of Elwaq but denied that any fighting had taken place.
“We have advanced. We are now close to Afmadow,” Somali Col. Yasin Adan told Reuters from an area near Afmadow.
“Our allied forces (Kenyan troops) are with us. We cannot wait for the soil to dry. We are moving slowly, slowly.”
Al Shabaab’s fighters have hunkered down in Afmadow, a stronghold which serves as a transit point for goods from the port in Kismayu, about 120 km south of Afmadow.
“Tension is high in Afmadow. Whenever we open our shops, people scare us and say, ‘The Kenyan troops have come,’” said Afmadow resident Hawa Gadid.
“Al Shabaab have been forcibly picking teenagers from their houses in the last 48 hours (to fight). They are determined to fight the Kenyans come what may. Afmadow is al Shabaab’s frontline,” she told Reuters, adding that truckloads of fighters were arriving from other regions.
A senior Somali commander said the operation’s aim was to rid Kismayu, a port city that serves as al Shabaab’s nerve center for operations, of the militants. Residents said planes were flying low over Kismayu.
MOGADISHU FIGHTING
Kenya has long looked nervously at its anarchic neighbor and its troops have made brief incursions in the past.
This week’s operation is on a much larger scale and al Shabaab has vowed to retaliate, saying it was not responsible for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners in Kenya.
It says Nairobi is using the attacks as a pretext for its military campaign, dubbed Operation Linda Nchi - Swahili for “Protect the Nation.”
Paris said on Wednesday that Frenchwoman Marie Dedieu, whom gunmen seized from her home on the northern Kenya coast and took to Somalia in a speedboat, had died.
Another British woman and two Spanish female aid workers are still missing.
The Somali government denounced Dedieu’s death and vowed to bring those responsible to justice. The government, however, with the support of African Union peacekeepers, only controls most of the capital Mogadishu, while al Shabaab has a strong grip on large swathes of southern-central Somalia.
Under sustained pressure from government troops and African peacekeepers, al Shabaab withdrew from most of their bases in Mogadishu in August, but remained in a few pockets and have carried out suicide bombings in the capital.
On Thursday, African peacekeepers and Somali government forces captured one of the last remaining pockets under al Shabaab’s control in Mogadishu.
“We have made a lot of progress this morning. We captured part of Dayniile district,” Ndayiragije Come, a spokesman for the Burundian forces, said on Thursday.
“The operation is going on. Al Shabaab is also fighting.”
Two bombings in Mogadishu this week, as well as a suicide truck bombing earlier this month which killed more than 70 people, have raised concerns at the government’s failure to secure the entire coastal capital after al Shabaab’s withdrawal.
