Explained: Who are the Al Shabaab, and what is their quarrel with the US in Kenya?

The Islamist Al Shabaab group is active in East Africa and is involved in the ongoing civil war in Somalia.

Travellers gather, stranded at the Lamu jetty, following an attack by Somalia’s Islamist group al Shabaab on a military base in Manda, Lamu, Kenya January 5, 2020. (Reuters Photo: Abdalla Barghash)

On Sunday, a military base in Kenya, used by US and Kenyan forces, came under attack from the Somalia-based Al Shabaab militant group. US aircraft and vehicles were destroyed in the assault and four attackers were killed, Associated Press reported.

While there have been confrontations between the US and Al Shabaab in the past, this is the first time the latter has struck US forces inside Kenya, considered to be a key base for fighting the highly resilient militant group.

Previous Al Shabaab attacks in Kenya and Somalia, and US response

The Islamist Al Shabaab group is active in East Africa and is involved in the ongoing civil war in Somalia. The group has been fighting to overthrow the weak West-backed Somali government, the latter being supported by a 21,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force.

In 2011, Kenya invaded southern Somalia following kidnappings that Al Shabaab claimed, and the former’s troops were integrated into the peacekeeping force a year later.

In 2013, the militant group struck the Kenyan capital Nairobi in a multi-day attack that left 67 dead. A year later, a US airstrike killed key Al Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.

The group in 2015 killed 148 people at Garissa University College in central Kenya in a 15-hour siege.

In October 2017, truck bombings believed to be carried out by Al Shabaab killed over 500 in Mogadishu in Somalia. A US airstrike killed more than a hundred militants affiliated with the group in the country a month later.

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In January 2019, Al Shabaab launched a suicide attack on an upscale hotel and office complex in Nairobi, killing 21 people.

In September, the group carried out a raid on the Baledogle base in Somalia, which is used by both Somali special forces and American troops. The base was not breached, and all attackers were killed.

Last week, a truck bomb in Somalia’s capital killed at least 79 people and US airstrikes killed seven al-Shabab fighters in response.

Al Shabaab militant group’s flag. (Al-Shabaab/Handout via Reuters)

The Sunday attack

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The US established Camp Simba in Kenya’s Lamu county more than a decade ago, where it maintains under a 100 personnel. In 2019, it became a permanent military installation after a US flag-raising at the camp signified its change from “tactical to enduring operations”.

The Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) said there had been an attempt to breach security at the Manda Bay airstrip, which is near the Camp Simba US base, but the attack had been “successfully repulsed”, CNN reported. The US trains and gives counterterror support to its East African partners at the Manda Bay airfield.

Al Shabaab in a statement claimed responsibility and said that it had destroyed seven aircraft and three military vehicles in the attack.

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