US Govt Warns of Imminent Terrorist Attack in Kenya

[Cail]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/22/world/...html?hpt=hp_t1

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) -- The U.S. Embassy in Kenya warned American citizens Saturday of an "imminent threat of terrorist attacks" after Kenya sent troops across the border into Somalia to pursue suspected Islamic militants from Al-Shabaab.

Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua told CNN about the advance this week, which marks a dramatic shift in security tactics for the east African powerhouse.

"This is to inform U.S. citizens residing in or visiting Kenya that the U.S. Embassy in Kenya has received credible information of an imminent threat of terrorist attacks directed at prominent Kenyan facilities and areas where foreigners are known to congregate, such as malls and night clubs," the U.S. Embassy said in an emergency message.

It added that it has taken measures to limit official U.S. government visits and that citizens should consider deferring travel to Kenya.

Al-Shabaab, which is linked to al Qaeda and has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, is fighting to impose its own interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia, on Somalia.

The group has said it considers the Kenyan forces crossing the border as "an affront to Somalia's territorial sovereignty." It previously threatened to "come into Kenya" if Kenyan forces did not leave Somalia.

Recent abductions of tourists and aid workers in Kenya have heightened tensions.

On September 11, armed bandits broke into a beachfront cottage where Britons Judith and David Tebbutt, both in their 50s, were staying. David Tebbutt was shot dead while trying to resist the attack. His wife was grabbed and spirited away on a speedboat, and is believed to have been taken into Somalia.

On October 1, pirates made another cross-border raid, this time snatching a French woman in her 60s from a holiday home on Manda Island where she lived part of the year.

And earlier this month, gunmen abducted two Spanish workers from the medical charity Doctors Without Borders from the Dadaab refugee complex, about 80 kilometers (about 50 miles) from the Somali border.

Al-Shabaab has denied responsibility for the abductions.

[Militant]

Just setting the pretense for some false flag incident so we have a new race of people to hate, to garner public support for the war machine to keep consolidating nations.

[Churchill]

Al-Shabaab is actually a pretty big deal and I believe Congress signed off on NATO/UN proposal for what essentially amounted to a writ against piracy/somalia's support of.

[hey]

Where is kenya, and why should i care about this?

[Cantih]

Where is kenya, and why should i care about this?

[Pirian]

Fuck me this is the funniest youtube video I've seen in forever. Fucking /thread.

[hey]

[video=lions and tigers in kenya[/video].

It's in africa? Why is this even a thread then? Should be in random news.

[MaachaQ]

It's in africa? Why is this even a thread then? Should be in random news.

Do we have a random news thread other than the tabloid Wop thread? >.>

[hey]

Do we have a random news thread other than the tabloid Wop thread? >.>

That's the one.

[oldoldman]

How the hell do you even differentiate terrorist attacks from all the other crazy shit that happens in Africa?

[tyven]

have the spear chuckers figured out how to harness their aids and turn it into a weapon yet? i fear the weaponized aids

WHAT IF THEY ARE SENDING AN AIDS BOMB TO KENYA

[Valisk]

an imminent threat of terrorist attacks directed at prominent Kenyan facilities and areas where foreigners are known to congregate, such as malls and night clubs

Shouldn't be shopping and dancing in a warzone.

[Pirian]

How the hell do you even differentiate terrorist attacks from all the other crazy shit that happens in Africa?

Easy: if it is something that we will most likely directly benefit from getting involved -- it's a terrorist attack, and if it is something that we will most likely not directly benefit from getting involved -- it's not a terrorist attack.

http://cdn.specktra.net/d/d8/d81e16f...oreYouKnow.gif

[archibaldcrane]

Throwin grenades in your bars

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...79N04U20111024

(Reuters) - A grenade exploded in a Nairobi bar on Monday wounding 13 people, two days after Kenya's U.S. embassy warned of an imminent attack there as the east African nation fights Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia.
Kenya Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said there was no evidence yet to link the attack to Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab and senior officials from the group declined to comment.
Al Shabaab had threatened major reprisals if Kenyan troops did not leave and have launched large-scale attacks in the past.
Witnesses said a man knocked on the door of Mwaura's bar early on Monday morning, hurled in the grenade and ran away.
"I heard an explosion, there was darkness and I thought the electicity had gone out but when I touched my face, there was blood," Lawrence Kioko told Reuters.
"The person who lobbed the grenade was not seen by anyone," Iteere told a media conference, adding that the device was Russian made and similar to one that killed two people in a bus station attack in Nairobi in December.
Nairobi blames al Shabaab for a wave of kidnappings of foreigners on Kenyan soil that have threatened the country's multi-million dollar tourism industry. The group has denied responsibility for the kidnappings, saying Nairobi was using them as a pretext for its military campaign.
BLOOD AND BEER BOTTLES
Reuters footage showed blood and beer bottles splattered on the ground of Mwaura's bar, which is frequented by labourers attracted by its cheap beer and spirits.
Blood stained a sink and overturned seats and debris littered the floor. Police cordoned off the area as an officer examined damage on the walls from the force of the explosion.
"There was a lot of blood, injuries, people were screaming, others confused, generally it was chaotic. It was a chaotic situation," bar owner Charles Mwaura told Reuters.
Simon Githai, communications manager at Kenyatta National Hospital, said 13 patients were brought in, nine had been discharged and two more were likely to be sent home soon.
"We are seeing ourselves admitting only two patients," he told Reuters.
Iteere said the police force had taken steps to boost security around potential targets within Kenya.
"We have heightened physical security on most of our vital installations, buildings, other social places like shopping malls, bridges, our fuel and petrol storage tanks," he said. "The police are not that many but our presence must be seen."
He also said police had found a number of AK47 rifles in a weekend sweep of the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, home to more than 400,000 Somalis who have fled violence and famine at home.
SOMALI GOVT NOT PLEASED
Kenya is the latest of Somalia's neighbours to intervene militarily in a country that has not had an effective government for the last 20 years and where al Shabaab's presence has had serious security repercussions on the region.
Kenya has in the past initiated brief cross-border incursions, but the latest operation is on a much larger scale raising fears the country may be dragged into the anarchic Horn of Africa's two-decade civil war.
While Somali government officials had said the two countries were cooperating in the fight against al Shabaab, President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was more circumspect about the Kenya incursion on Monday.
"The Somali government and its people will not be pleased with Kenya's intervention," Sharif told reporters while visiting the front-line in Mogadishu. "We had not agreed with Kenya beyond helping us with logistics."
The Islamist militants have proven capable of launching large-scale suicide attacks within Somalia and outside and have warned they would bring the "flames of war" into Kenya.
This month, a suicide truck bombing claimed by the rebels killed more than 70 people when it exploded outside a compound housing government ministries in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.
The militants also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, which killed 79 people watching the soccer World Cup final last year.
That strike, the militants' first on foreign soil, was in revenge for Uganda's contribution to the 9,000-strong AU peacekeeping force which is supporting Somalia's Western-backed government troops in removing the rebels from Mogadishu.
Nairobi is home to a large Somali community and last week security forces arrested two doctors charged with being members of al Shabaab. The militants said three of their clerics had been arrested in Kenya, one of whom is on a U.N. sanctions list for recruiting new members and soliciting funds for the rebels.
Al Qaeda struck east Africa in 1998, killing hundreds of people, mostly Africans, in suicide bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

[Churchill]

Easy: if it is something that we will most likely directly benefit from getting involved -- it's a terrorist attack, and if it is something that we will most likely not directly benefit from getting involved -- it's not a terrorist attack.

http://cdn.specktra.net/d/d8/d81e16f...oreYouKnow.gif

Except al-Shabaab and its activities have been declared terrorist in nature since 2008, and that's only the amount of time they've been designated as al-Shabaab. Prior to that, they were the ICU but when the TFG was established in Somalia a portion of ICU broke off and continued their activities while being supported by al-Qaeda and as such became al-Shabaab. The ICU is the original culprit behind us going to Somalia, and if not for extremely poor decisions from the White House we might not have lost 6 Rangers that day.

[Kuya]

Use more abbreviations pah

[djzombie]

this thread needs more lions tigers and giraffes

[Pikarya]

Where is kenya, and why should i care about this?