Wednesday February 2, 2022
The sultry border town of Mandera on the eastern tip of Kenya’s north is a tough place to live.
Straddling the borderline between Kenya and lawless Somalia, people from both sides of the border mingle freely, braving the sweltering heat.
But beneath the hubbub of Mandera lies the danger - the town is the main entry point and hideout for Al-Shabaab terrorists from Somalia.
These terrorists are responsible for numerous terrorists’ attacks in Kenya.
The terrorists have also complicated inter-clan conflicts among Kenya’s Somali by supplying sophisticated weapons to select clans.
This has made the conflicts deadlier than before. These conflicts escalate during the election period.
It is here that we meet Musa (his real identity is concealed), a former Al-Shabaab militant who has since renounced the terrorist organization.
Before he turned coat, Musa served in Al-Shabaab’s dreaded Al-Aminiyat branch for six years.
Al-Aminiyat is an elite branch that is charged with gathering intelligence, smuggling goods, suicide bombing and recruitment of fighters.
“As an Al-Shabaab agent for six years, I smuggled arms and supplied them to different communal groups living in northern Kenya’’, he says, his eyes darting from side to side, conscious that he could easily fall victim to members of the terror group sent to track down and execute defectors like himself.
Since he defected, the ex-Al-Shabaab agent has never been at ease.
In a bid to hide his spoors from the terrorist’s intelligence unit that is hot on his heels, he has become itinerant, moving from village to village and from town to town.
Recruited in 2013 and deployed to Al-Aminiyat, Musa’s brief was to smuggle weapons and contraband goods, move new recruits from Kenya to Somalia and help militants from Somalia to cross to Kenya.
Musa’s home is in a village close to Mandera.
Because he was a local, he was a big asset to the terror group as he was used to distributing weapons and helping recruit fighters from his clan.
For this, he earned respect within the group.
"The group recruits and deploys in all clans living in northern Kenya. I was assigned to deal with my clan. I smuggled arms to my clan from the year 2013 to 2016,’’ admits Musa.
Among the weapons he smuggled into Kenya include the lethal military rifle, M-16, and rocket-propelled grenades which were in high demand.
But after serving for six years, he had a rude re-awakening and made a drastic decision to call it quits.
The turning point for the ex- Al-Shabaab agent came in 2016.
One day, the terror group’s seniors ordered the beheading of some of his colleagues ostensibly for sharing information with an unnamed intelligence agency. He knew he would be next.
"I knew I was next because all the fighters who were beheaded were colleagues from my village in Mandera, Kenya. I immediately dropped Al-Shabaab weapons and crossed the border into Kenya. Since then, I have been moving from place to place, fearing for my security,” he says.
North Eastern Kenya, where Musa’s Mandera is located, is dry desolate land.
Occupied by members of the ethnic Somali community, it is one of the poorest regions in Kenya.
Neglected since the colonial era, the area has only recently started getting serious attention from authorities in Nairobi.
The introduction of a devolved system of government has somewhat improved things, but the area still lags behind.
Initially referred to as the Northern Frontier District, the British colonialists used it as a buffer zone against the Italian invasion.
After independence, the area sought to secede to Somalia, but first Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta would have none of that.
A decade long war, called the Shifta War, pitting Kenya and the secessionists exacerbated the marginalization of the area.
Insecurity become the norm as bandits, armed with weapons from Somalia, freely roamed the area, terrorizing citizens and attacking government installations.
The development of social facilities such as schools and hospitals were neglected.
There was little investment in agriculture and livestock. Poverty reigned supreme.
The scarcity of resources such as water and pastures led to frequent deadly conflicts between the different clans.
These conflicts plague the area to date, only that this time, they have been worsened by the proliferation of illegal arms from Somalia.
The implosion of Somalia in the early 1990s worsened an already dire situation.
Refugees from the country flooded the region. Insecurity escalated as some of the refugees become involved in gun-running, supplying weapons to local militias.
Terror agents found a safe haven in the refugee camps, which they used to plan and launch attacks.
The region is therefore fertile ground for Al-Shabaab who exploit the poverty and desperation among the youth to recruit local fighters such as Musa.
Today, the region teems with organized militia groups, terrorist agents and assorted facilitators who illegally cross the border from Somalia and slip into major Kenyan towns.
Before the Al-Shabaab insurgency, Al-Qaeda linked terrorist organizations had been operating in Somalia territory.
These organizations easily recruited youth from Kenya’s north.
The group uses radical Islam as a strategy to brainwash the youth before recruiting and offering them advanced training.
The recruits are then used to gather intelligence, smuggle essential goods and hardware through the porous border and supply arms to certain communities and clans.