Kenyan military’s role in Somalia to continue: President

Kenya has decided to set up an inquiry panel to investigate last month’s terror attack on the Westgate mall, besides the president reaffirming the Kenyan military’s role will continue in Somalia.

Speaking in Nairobi during an inter-faith prayer service, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Tuesday that his government would set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate what really took place during the Sep 21-mall attack, Xinhua reported. 

He also vowed that the country’s soldiers will not leave Somalia as a result of the recent attacks. 

“We must be our brother’s keeper wherever we are. Let us work together in smoking out criminals before they harm us. That way we will rid ourselves of evil doers,” he said.

The Commission of Inquiry will establish if there were security lapses that led to the siege at Nairobi’s Westgate mall that left over 60 Kenyans and foreigners dead, he said.

The president said his government would not be intimidated by evil forces in its efforts to ensure peace and stability in Kenya and regionally, while vowing the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) would remain in Somalia until there was stability in the Horn of Africa — Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Sudan.

“These murderers claim they attacked us because Kenya is in Somalia. Let me remind them that for over 20 years Somalis fought each other while we only offered refuge to those running away from the civil war,” he said.

Kenya went to fight in Somalia after the Al-Shabaab interfered with the security of Kenyans and not before, he added. 

Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack in the media, and said that it was in response to Nairobi’s October 2011 military intervention against Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

IANS