Days after Islamists killed 148 people at Garissa university, Kenya’s president held out an olive branch to Muslims and urged them to join Nairobi in the struggle against militant Islam by informing on sympathisers.
But as Uhuru Kenyatta launches a battle for Muslim hearts and minds, his security forces must first reckon with the deep mistrust among ethnic-Somali Muslims in the country’s northeast regions bordering Somalia.
Kenyatta also faces an uphill task in reforming the violent ways of troops on the ground. A day before he spoke, a soldier in Garissa was seen by a Reuters reporter lashing at a crowd of Muslim women with a long stick.
“We live in fear,” said Barey Bare, one of a dozen veiled Somali-Kenyan women targeted by the soldier.
“The military are a threat and al Shabaab are a threat. We are in between.”
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(Reuters) After attack and backlash, Kenya faces battle to win over Muslims
Days after Islamists killed 148 people at Garissa university, Kenya’s president held out an olive branch to Muslims and urged them to join Nairobi in the struggle against militant Islam by informing on sympathisers.
But as Uhuru Kenyatta launches a battle for Muslim hearts and minds, his security forces must first reckon with the deep mistrust among ethnic-Somali Muslims in the country’s northeast regions bordering Somalia.
Kenyatta also faces an uphill task in reforming the violent ways of troops on the ground. A day before he spoke, a soldier in Garissa was seen by a Reuters reporter lashing at a crowd of Muslim women with a long stick.
“We live in fear,” said Barey Bare, one of a dozen veiled Somali-Kenyan women targeted by the soldier.
“The military are a threat and al Shabaab are a threat. We are in between.”
Read it all.