Sabbotage Or Just an Accident?

Ugandan soldier Lt. Col. Chris Kasiji is rescued after the crash

As the London Summer Olympics came to a close, news of disappearance of Ugandan military choppers over Kenyan airspace were hitting the news desks. It must have been such an anti-climax for many Ugandans who were not only relishing at the countries capture of an Olympic gold medal in 40 years but the fact that the winner of that very same medal, Stephen Kiprotich, beat Kenyan favourite Wilson Kipsang and defending London Marathon Champion Abel Kirui.


 The choppers were en route to Somalia to aid in AMISOM's push to capture port city of Kismayu, Al - Shabaab's safe haven and source of cash and supplies for the terror group. By the time, the exact news of the disappearance were scanty. It wasn't until the following day that better and clearer sequence of events of what might have happened started trickling in. As we speak, the whereabouts of two choppers remain unknown together with their crew. The rest were rescued in the ragged terrain of Mt.Kenya, thanks to a local pilot well versed with the local terrain. Some questions arise though; what exactly happened on the fateful night? Why was the Kenyan government slow to react that it had to take a Good Samaritan to spearhead the rescue mission? Could the terror group Al - Shabaab have brought the planes down? And if they had, how did the get into Kenya and how did they learn of the impending attacks considering that they were top government secrets(Kenyan and Ugandan governments)?

The Cover of Gaidi Mtaani Issue 1

While I am skeptical about anything and everything Al - Shabaab and even more skeptical about their intelligence network, their threats cannot be undermined. Just recently I got a chance to go through their clandestine Swahili publication, 'Gaidi Mtaani'( Swahili for Street Terrorist). The publication both delighted me and saddened me. The fluency of the language is amazing. But that's all the positive their is about it! One could also decipher that the publication was put together by very well educated individual(s) from the way the ideas  were articulated and the obvious religious knowledge. What convinced me that the articles were not just patched up by some hole-diving aspiring guerrillas, as some had been shown on screen during their training, was the ability to twist religious teachings to suit their justification for the evil they are carrying out in and out of Somali. I can't help but feel pity for the less fortunate education-wise in the society for they can easily fall victims of the teachings of this terror group, but then, we can assume that they wont since they can't read!

Back to the copter crashes. Thus, after reading 'Gaidi Mtaani' Issue 1, I could conclude that Al - Shabaab has resorted to propaganda tactics of war. And we well know that after a combative and battlefield confrontation, a retreating and surrendering army will do anything to avoid defeat and Al - Shabaab's  resort to propaganda is the clutching straw of a drowning man! It would be therefore highly improbable that they would be in a position to bring down three military choppers simultaneously especially in a rough terrain like the one that the Ugandan choppers went down in.

As more about the crashes comes to the fore, we can only hope that peace and security prevails especially as we draw nearer to the elections and that the incidents witnessed in Ndhiwa during the nominations for the upcoming by-elections in the constituency were isolated instances of having one too many mad men in the market!