Posted on 06/21/2003 10:20:36 AM PDT by Dog
NAIROBI, June 21 (Reuters) - Kenyan authorities arrested dozens of people on Saturday and halted flights to and from Somalia after the United States closed its embassy in Nairobi because of what it called a terrorist threat, police said.
U.S. defense officials said on Friday the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency had put its threat level for Kenya at "high", the highest of four levels of security.
Kenyan police said on Saturday they had arrested 36 suspects in a major swoop in the Eastleigh estate, a part of the city inhabited mostly by Kenyan Somalis. Kenya also halted flights to and from Somalia for security reasons, authorities said.
"The threats you have heard, we do not take them lightly," Nicodemus Diffu, a senior assistant police commissioner told Reuters. "We have so many aliens who came to Kenya using porous borders and are causing a security threat."
He said it was too early to link the suspects to terrorism but the swoop was linked to the heightened security alert and the suspects would be arraigned for various charges, including being in the country illegally, on Monday.
The U.S. embassy in Nairobi said it would remain shut on Monday and Tuesday and probably for longer due to what it described as "new concrete information concerning the continuing threat of terrorist activity in Kenya and East Africa".
U.S. officials have said that al Qaeda operatives are continuing to plan attacks in Kenya and the Horn of Africa and could undertake an operation at any time.
In 1998, attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, capital of neighbouring Tanzania, killed 224 people, most of them Africans. An attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in the coastal town of Mombasa killed 16 people in November.
Security concerns have heightened after Kenya said last month that a mastermind of the attack, who had previously been seen in Somalia, had been spotted in Kenya.
The United States says the threat of attack in Kenya remains because the East African country has failed to capture any suspects involved in the November 2002 attacks.
Television footage on Saturday showed regular police and the dreaded para-military unit, rarely seen in public, combing the Eastleigh estate which is heavily populated by Somali refugees.
Many Somalis fleeing chaos and mayhem at home cross the border into Kenya and the government in Nairobi has repeatedly blamed refugees for rising crime.
"We have stopped all aircraft coming or going to Mogadishu from last night for security reasons," said Dominic Kabiru, spokesman for the Kenya Airports Authority.
And no! I am not against protecting the hapless masses from other countries from slaughter in their homelands (and one reason many refugees flee to Kenya is because it is basically the only hope they have of freedom, the chance of prosperity, and a life in lieu of a wretched existence). Hence I have pity and feel deeply for the refugees from Somalia, the Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi, and even ‘economical refugees’ from Uganda and Tanzania who flock across the borders into Kenya looking for the semblance of a life!
However when such population shifts bring the terror and scourge of Islamic jehadism then I start to wonder if something should be done about it.
Thankfully the Kenyan government has implemented some un-PC policies (like shooting illegal border-crossers from Somalia on sight (and before some start saying ‘why kill the innocent somalis’ you should know bands of Somali Brigands regularly used to raid Kenyan towns from across the border and maim/rape/kill Kenyans …..until the policies were implemented and the Somali thugs learnt that the British/Israeli trained Kenyan military can indeed whack their silly @$$e$ all the way into next Tuesday).
Anyways more needs to be done. Much more. And more will be done …..much more!
I just hope when action is indeed taken the media does not start screaming ‘atrocity and bloody murder!’
And now that the para-military has been activated i think the Jehadis might have a pretty hard time coping (by the way in past para-military operations it has been noted that some members seem to be white and speaking in Israeli accents .....but its all obfuscated).
Fin!
Back in the (reletively) good old days, Somali Airlines was run by Lufthanza, and was one of the best run airlines in East Africa. I have no idea who is flying out of Mogadishu anymore.
Apparently, it also includes Lewiston, Maine.
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