al Shabaab Will Target Primary Schools in Kenya Next

Last Friday, Dalson Radio in Mogadishu, Somalia reported that Kenyan security officials have discovered al Shabaab leaflets urging jihadist fighters to target four primary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet county in Kenya.  The leaflets threatened future attacks and were slipped under the doors of one of the targeted schools.  They also claimed that al Shabaab had fighters in the area who are ready to carry out attacks and bomb local cities and learning institutions.

In part of the Kenyan response to the attack on the Christian school in Garissa last month, authorities threatened to close the Dabaab refugee camp which is home to hundreds of thousands of Somalis.  It is also where al Shabaab is believed to have staged the Garissa attack, 62 miles away.

The fliers found in Elgeyo Marakwet, in turn express anger over the threat to close down the refugee camp.  Major push back from the threat to close the camp by Kenyan Deputy President, William Ruto, came not only from al Shabaab but from the U.N. High Council on Refugees and the international press.  Minus the counter-terrorism issue, the idea of relocating 350,000 thousand Somali refugees back into a war torn and lawless Somalia doesn’t strike many as the obvious practical solution.

Yet, al Shabaab’s ability to operate from inside the refugee camp is at the heart of the major counter terrorism challenges plaguing Kenya.  This is a unique problem in its scale but U.N. relief operations have been co-opted by jihadist groups like Hamas in the past.  In a camp the size of a metropolis where al Shabaab can operate openly enough to organize an attack like Garissa, those critical of the Kenyan reaction should ask what a practical solution looks like for Kenyan security.  What is most clear is that the U.N.H.C.R. is unable to operate the refugee camp with a counterintelligence program that can deter attacks against the Kenyan people.