Al-Shabaab will emerge stronger after Nairobi mall attack, warns analyst.
The Somalia-based Islamist group known as al-Shabaab will emerge stronger and more unified after its terrorist attack in Nairobi, and could provide other extreme groups with an example to follow, counter-insurgency analysts warned on Tuesday.
Al-Shabaab's message is that it is "down but not out", it is "losing territory but not people", said David Kilcullen, a former adviser to David Petraeus, then US commander in Iraq, and of Nato forces in Afghanistan.
The purpose of the Westgate mall attack was to send Kenyans a message – it was the consequence of sending troops to Somalia, said Kilcullen, who was in London to launch his book Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla.
He suggested that al-Shabaab wanted to provoke over-reaction by the Kenyan security forces and thereby gain more support, especially in Eastleigh, the eastern district of Nairobi where most of the 250,000 Somalis in the Kenyan capital live. Many in that area are already being radicalised, analysts say.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/24/al-shabaab-stronger-nairobi-warns-analyst