Kenya's Fight Against Al-Shabaab - The Potential for Success of Operation Linda Nchi

Abstract

On 16 October 2011, Kenyan troops invaded Somalia with the aim of driving back the Islamist al-Shabaab terrorist group and establishing a buffer zone of approximately 100 kilometres along the Kenya-Somali border. With the kidnapping of two Spanish women working for the aid organisation Doctors Without Borders by terrorists in the first week of October, Kenya had had enough of the growing threat and declared war on the militants in order to increase the security of the country and its region. At the time of publication of the last issue of African Studies for 2011, the possibility of the success of Operation Linda Nchi, which was in its second month, is increasingly being raised (if not necessarily questioned), recalling the failures of the American and Ethiopian interventions in Somalia over the past twenty years. Although the advancing Kenyan army and its allies have achieved many successes so far, the attackers must prepare for a longer war, as the goal is also to settle local political relations in close cooperation with the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG).