Al-Shabab: the terrorist attack in Kenya is a signal to the Islamic State

PAs fast as possible, the police transported bodies to rescue the teams. Other shots that were posted on Twitter on Tuesday showed burning cars and smoke over the "DusitD2" luxury hotel in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, with volleyball. Hundreds of shocked people were taken from the hotel park, partially covered in blood.

Shops in an office complex were also influenced, and staff and visitors sent desperate messages to their families, sent from the baths in which they were hiding.

These were scenes that strongly recalled the unresolved trauma of the city's Westgate in 2013. At that time, 67 people died in an attack by the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabab.

Once again, Sunni Muslims from the neighboring country have confessed. "We are carrying out an operation in Kenya," an al-Shabab spokesman said in the afternoon.

The most spectacular al-Shabab plot of the last few years

The same militia declared that 47 people had been killed. It is said that a police officer spoke of 15 deaths after the attack, which were brought to the Leichhalle. Among the dead is also a US citizen. This was confirmed by an official of the American State Department in Washington. Local hospitals in Nairobi have asked the population to donate blood.

The BBC cited eyewitnesses claiming to have seen four armed men. The Wall Street Journal reported six assailants. The first shots were Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm local time to hear, in the evening the situation was not under control.

It is probably the most spectacular al-Shabaab attack since 2015, when militias also shot and killed 150 people in a university in Kenya. The message is the same: Kenya, which is powerful in the region, is to withdraw its troops from Somalia, with which the country, in association with Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Djibouti (Amisom peacekeepers), is contributing to the fight against terrorists.

Kenya is an important partner of the West in unstable East Africa: the withdrawal of its troops would be a major obstacle. The attack could also create pressure in other nations to withdraw soldiers for fear of attacks.

Taxes are collected in "mafia style"

Above all, it is a sign of inner strength. Al-Shabab was rejected by Amisom soldiers between 2010 and 2015 by many strategically important cities in Somalia. Subsequently, however, the army's offensive has increased more and more, in the center and in the south of the country, terrorists continue to tyranny large areas – here, ignored by the international community, many more people die than in attacks to & # 39; abroad.

Partly through violence against apostates, much more often by refusing to allow relief organizations to access drought areas.

Terrorists are often the only ones to provide food, albeit on a small scale, with propaganda against the seemingly inactive central government in the capital Mogadishu.

The Nairobi attack is intended to intimidate the inhabitants of the controlled area, whose mafia-style UN invoices constitute a pillar of the Al-Shabab financing model.

In December, an offensive against IS was announced

Hundreds of terrorists were killed in airstrikes supported by US forces. According to the embassy, ​​the militia has not lost its effectiveness.

Last October, the organization publicly accused five men of being accused of spying on the government endorsed by the West. A victory against the Amisom forces is unrealistic for the terrorists. A quick defeat, too.

Furthermore, al-Shabab is part of the international al-Qaida network and is increasingly recruiting against the competition of the Islamic State (IS). Although its strength is only a fraction of al-Shabab, which has estimated between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters according to estimates by the American think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

But it was only in December that a spokesman for Al-Shabab declared the beginning of the offensive "eradication of the disease" against IS. "They try to divide, weaken and kill us," he said. Above all, al-Shabab focuses on territorial gains in the country, while IS wants to increase its involvement in global terrorism.

Turning point in the fight against the militia not yet in sight

For years, analysts have predicted that al-Shabab is about to end, commented on the US Institute Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). The long-awaited turning point in the fight against the militia was not yet in sight.

In early 2018, Al-Shabab leader Abu Ubaidah restructured top management. Since then Moallim Osman, the supreme commander of terrorists, a promotion, probably owes his successful planning of the attack in the city of El Adde.

In south-western Somalia, his men stormed a Kenyan military base there on January 15, 2016, killing more than 140 soldiers. Only three years later, al-Shabab hit Kenya.