Kenya and Somalia

Mogadishu's gutted streets are more than 1,000 kms (and a universe) away from the leafy 'burbs of Nairobi but the shockwaves from Somalia's latest bout of fighting are rippling through to the Kenyan capital. Not to get caught up in paranoia, but warnings of potential attacks by Somali militant Islamists seem to be increasing. Just last week, I was advised by friends to stay away from two public places popular with foreigners because of security warnings. It's frustrating not to know where the information comes from -- is it bonafide intelligence, Kenyan or otherwise; chatter on the Internet; something else? Today's Daily Nation offered one explanation : the suspect visit to Nairobi of two British businessmen -- one of Lebanese origin, the other Egyptian -- in February which led to a raid on their host's home, unearthing pictures of shopping malls on his computer and what police described as terrorist training material.
There can be no doubt that Nairobi offers a smorgasbord of soft targets. Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula may have reassured foreigners that diplomatic police are on high alert, but there is little evidence of heightened security at some of the more obvious places. Then, this weekend, things moved up a level.
Somalia's transitional government appealed to Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Djibouti to send troops within 24 hours to fight its Islamist foes. Of course, troops did not materialise -- at least officially --but Wetangula has appeared to suggest that Kenya's door is open to military intervention. "We will not sit by and watch the situation in Somalia deteriorate beyond where it is. We have a duty ... as a government to protect our strategic interests including our security," he said. "Kenya will do exactly that to ensure the unfolding developments in Somalia do not in any way undermine or affect our peace and security as a country."
(Ethiopia, which sent troops in in 2006 to support the then government, denies there are any of its soldiers in Somalia now. Residents in central Somalia say, though, that they have seen them and there are fresh reports of Ethiopians on the ground.)
Then al Shabaab said it would attack Nairobi if Kenya got involved.
"If it tries to, we will attack Kenya and destroy the tall buildings of Nairobi," Sheik Hasan Yacqub, an al Shabaab spokesman, said in Kismayo. Al Shabaab has threatened to seize part of Kenya's northeast in the past, but this latest menace is more emotive and has global resonance.
The possibility of Kenyan intervention -- as part of a wider "coalition of the willing" or on its own, in soldiers or in hardware or logistics -- is intriguing, not just for its effect on Somalia.
Would intervention create the national identity that so many commentators say is missing here -- nothing like a common enemy to bring people together. What would be the effect on the hundreds of thousands of Somalis in Kenya -- not just in squalid refugee camps like Dadaab but also in Eastleigh in Nairobi? Would intervention improve Kenya's somewhat fractious relationship with the Obama administration (the terror alerts put a whole new perspective on Obama's decision to visit Ghana on his African trip)? And how exposed is Nairobi, and wider Kenya, to attacks by al Shabaab or some of the hundreds of hardened foreign fighters who have come to Somalia to wage jihad?
Intervention of any kind is risky, but leaving Somalia to become an entrenched training ground for al Qaeda and its allies in east Africa is a real danger. Maybe we are at a tipping point where the international community has decided that a failed Somalia is no longer just another African "basket case" that draws sympathy but little else, but instead is everybody's problem. A glimmer of hope perhaps for the residents of Mogadishu, where around 300 people have been killed in fighting just since May 7.
For a look at what some people think of foreign intervention, check out the BBC's Have Your Say