Who are the Al Shabaab? Discuss with examples their quarrel with the US in Kenya?
- The Islamist Al Shabaab group is active in East Africa and is involved in the ongoing civil war in Somalia.
- The group has been fighting to overthrow the weak West-backed Somali government, the latter being supported by a 21,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force.
- Recently a military base in Kenya, used by US and Kenyan forces, came under attack from the Somalia-based Al Shabaab militant group. US aircraft and vehicles were destroyed in the assault and four attackers were killed.
- While there have been confrontations between the US and Al Shabaab in the past, this is the first time the latter has struck US forces inside Kenya, considered to be a key base for fighting the highly resilient militant group.
- In 2011, Kenya invaded southern Somalia following kidnappings that Al Shabaab claimed, and the former’s troops were integrated into the peacekeeping force a year later.
- In 2013, the militant group struck the Kenyan capital Nairobi in a multi-day attack that left 67 dead. A year later, a US airstrike killed key Al Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.
- The group in 2015 killed 148 people at Garissa University College in central Kenya in a 15-hour siege.
- In October 2017, truck bombings believed to be carried out by Al Shabaab killed over 500 in Mogadishu in Somalia. A US airstrike killed more than a hundred militants affiliated with the group in the country a month later.
- In January 2019, Al Shabaab launched a suicide attack on an upscale hotel and office complex in Nairobi, killing 21 people.
- In September, the group carried out a raid on the Baledogle base in Somalia, which is used by both Somali special forces and American troops. The base was not breached, and all attackers were killed.
