Somalia's al Shabaab, a brutal jihadist militia linked to al Qaeda, has over the past two years been on the retreat, its forces expelled by Somali and African Union(AU) troops from many of the country's cities. Sunday's attack by it on the softest of targets, a small unprotected Kenyan coastal town of Mpeketoni, resulted in the deaths of at least 48 locals, mostly fans watching World Cup football in a television hall. In truth, the attack was an expression of its desperation and growing impotence, the mayhem, a publicity-seeking, strategically pointless act of propaganda against Kenyan involvement in Somalia as part of the AU peacekeeping contingent.
Kenya has witnessed a spate of attacks by Islamist militants since it deployed troops in Somalia in 2011, and al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack last September on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in which at least 67 civilians and members of security forces died. Since then another 64 people have been killed and 263 injured in "terrorist attacks".
The attack mirrors a 2010 al Shabaab bombing in Kampala of crowds watching World Cup matches on TV, killing 77 people. In May this year two suicide bombers from the group attacked a restaurant in Djibouti – 20 died. Both countries also have troops in Somalia. None have any intention of withdrawing them.
Al Shabaab's export of jihad echoes the growing internationalisation and cross-pollination of Africa's Islamist groups – it is reported to have provided training to Boko Haram, still holding hundreds of kidnapped schoolgirls. Kenya, Somalia, Algeria, Mali, Nigeria and Libya, all have seen major recent terror attacks from groups that have flourished since the Arab spring. Porous borders, weak and corrupt central governments, undertrained and underequipped militaries, flourishing drug trades that provide endless funds, all grist to the mill of the jihadist recruiters. And the latest manifestation, emboldened, as a Kenyan military spokesman put it to journalists yesterday, by the advance by Islamist militants in Iraq.