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Further Kenya Attacks in Somalia Build Horn of Africa War

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Kenyan military forces, backed by their navy, yesterday laid siege to the critical southern Somalia port of Kismayo, which had been controlled by the militant jihadist al-Shabaab movement which has dominated Southern Somalia. Also yesterday, the Kenyan military announced that it was expanding its reach into Somalia, and was planning to launch airstrikes against the legislative capital of Baidoa and nine other towns, because it had received what it called reliable information that two planeloads of arms had been shipped to Baidoa by air, to get around the blockade of the port.

Kenya has been induced to militarily attack the Shabaab in Somalia, following exactly the profile of the U.S.A. in Afghanistan, and is being pulled into an unending British-designed quagmire. Kenya and Shabaab are both being supported by outside forces.

The Kenyan forces yesterday warned Somalis living around the highly populated areas where they plan to conduct airstrikes "to avoid Al Shabaab camps or being used as conduits for the weapons." The planned airstrikes will take Kenya deeply into Somalia, as close as 256 kilometers from Mogadishu, i.e., well beyond the area of southern Somalia they occupied last month.

The Kenyan military reiterated: "In line with the Kenya Defence Forces strategy of diminishing Al Shabaab effectiveness and weapon use, the aforementioned towns will remain under imminent attack. Residents in the towns are advised to avoid contact with Al Shabaab militia." The Kenyan statements were made while Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali was on a visit to Kenya to discuss the situation. Somalia’s weak transitional government, kept in power by a 9,500-member African Union peacekeeping force, is besieged by al-Shabaab militias.

However, Somalia President Shariff Sheikh Ahmed on Oct. 24 asked the Kenyan government not to launch its incursion, fearing that another autonomous zone out of the control of the would-be government, would be the end result. There are already two such zones in northern Somalia: Somaliland, which had declared independence, and neighboring Puntland.

Kenya launched its incursion Oct. 16, two days after Obama announced that he was sending a military contingent of advisers to Uganda, for activity in the greater region. The question of whether the move was a necessary prerequisite for IMF support for Kenya has not yet been answered.

Kenya was desperate for support for its currency. An IMF delegation arrived in Kenya Oct. 13, demanding a tighter money policy. Yesterday, the Central Bank of Kenya raised its interest rate by the largest single amount ever: 5.5%. In addition, Central Bank Governor Njuguna Ndung’u announced that the Cash Reserve Ratio — the money that commercial banks must keep with the Central Bank as a bulwark against their operations) — would rise to 5.25% to put a brake on the amount of money in circulation. The two moves amount to the greatest influence that the IMF has had over domestic monetary policies in Kenya in the last 10 years, according to Kenyan press accounts, and were exactly what the IMF had demanded the day before (Oct. 31). This will take the base lending rate up to 22%, squeezing economic activity. These decisions were the conditions for a new foreign exchange support loan that Kenya desperately needed.