Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group typically described as a Somalian al-Qaeda offshoot, stormed an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, and started shooting. At least 39 people are dead, some gunmen are still dug in at the mall, and the Kenyan government is carrying out “major operations” that basically have police and special forces military going shop to shop. Nearly 300 people were treated at local hospitals.
Do we have any Nairobi Dopers?
Can someone explain why Al-Shabaab wanted to commit mass murder in Kenya?
Kenya has am enormous Somali population, both refugees and economic migrants, and a complicated history with Somalia and other neighbors.
I am just sick about this. Beyond the attack itself, this is gong to have terrible economic repercussions- A real shame in a country that is ready to boom.
We’ve had two mass shootings in the US this week, it’s OK to not want a third.
Kenya has long been troubled by Al Qaeda related terrorist attacks. I’m sorry to see this happen again in that country.
(Historical note: Osama bin Laden landed on the US FBI’s most wanted list not for the attacks in 2001 but for the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi US embassy bombings in 1998)
It’s about neither race nor religion. Al Shabaab is a political entity, and they are trying to further their political goals. Religion may be an easy way to fire up the ground troops, but in the end it is about politics.
It’s almost as if there are people who are willing to kill over religion and who find it very upsetting that others really don’t give a fig about their neighbor’s religion, so upsetting in fact that the fanatics insist on taking the battle to those horrible and tolerant people.
:rolleyes:
Forget gun control, can we have some religion control at this point in time?
I don’t think this is a racist attack, since this terrorist group seems to recruit people of all races. For example, CNN is reporting that some people have said they saw a white woman with the hostage takers and that this could be British-born Islamic extremist Samantha Lewthwaite (although as more details come in this may turn out to be untrue).
I don’t know why some people are seemingly afraid to acknowledge that religion can be a basis for terrorism just as politics can, or that they seem unable to comprehend that for some people religion and politics are indistinguishable.
Really? Has there been a rash of Episcopalian car bombs, mass killings of non-Episcopalians, and acid throwing on Episcopalian school girls that aren’t Episcopalian enough? Because, if so, I haven’t heard about it.
While I am very certain most Muslims are very much live and let live these days there is a lunatic fringe intent on starting armed conflicts with everyone else, including their fellow Muslims if they aren’t sufficiently Muslim by fanatic definitions. It’s rather like the US “pro-life” asshats that murder doctors who engage in abortions because, you know, murder justifies murder and their God told them to do it. Except the whackjobs among the Muslims aren’t just shooting individuals, they seem to like taking out groups.
Yes, Somalia might well be a mess even without religion, there’s all sort of problems there, but without religion you wouldn’t have people shot because they didn’t know the mother of some other religion’s chief prophet was named “Amina”.
They’d have most of the same problems, but they wouldn’t likely be exporting their problems. That attitude is unique to the Islamic world. “Our lives suck, so we’re going to take our domestic disputes abroad and make them everyone’s problem.” You didn’t see Congolese belligerents blowing up community centers in Buenos Aires.
I’m a terrible person.