Kenyan air strikes in Somalia
This extract is from Al Jazeera. Views expressed are the author’s own.
An air raid on a camp packed with displaced women and children has killed at least five people and wounded 45 others, including 31 children, according to the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
The Kenyan military admitted carrying out Sunday’s attack on the town of Jilib, where the camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) is located, but said the raid targeted al-Shabab fighters who are linked to al-Qaeda and blamed for a string of kidnappings of aid workers and tourists on Kenya’s coast.
“I can confirm five dead and 45 wounded,” Gautam Chatterjee, head of mission for MSF Holland in Somalia, told the Reuters news agency on Monday.
Chatterjee later told Al Jazeera that his medical team had “admitted 31 children, nine women and four men for treatment”, explaining that most had “shrapnel wounds”.
Kenyan troops entered Somalia two weeks ago to hunt down al-Shabab fighters, who have lately crossed into Kenya and kidnapped people. Al-Shabab is also fighting the Western-backed transitional federal government in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
Mixed reports
Abdiwelli Mohammed Ali, the Somali prime minister, said he did not believe the Kenyans were behind the attack.
“I doubt the Kenyans did this. Even if that’s the case, I doubt that they have done this on purpose,” he told Al Jazeera in Nairobi.
“The Kenyans wouldn’t target IDPs. But if that happened, then it’s an unfortunate incident. But the fight is not towards this IDPs; the fight was towards the al-Shabab who are a common enemy for both of us.
“They are an enemy for the Somalis and Kenyans. So that’s where our focus is and that’s where our target is.”
A Kenyan army spokesman could not confirm the incident but had said earlier that Kenyan forces had killed around 10 al-Shabab fighters in the same area.
Emmanuel Chirchir said: “We bombed an al-Shabab camp, killed 10 and wounded 47. We are sure about this assessment, no collateral damage, no women, no children.”
Al Jazeera’s Peter Greste, reporting from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, said that the Kenyan military later “acknowledged that there may well have been civilian casualties, but not as a direct result of their aerial attack”.
“What they’re saying is that they had information, they had intelligence on the ground, that there was a high-level al-Shabab meeting taking place at an al-Shabab base very close to this particular camp,” Greste said.
“They launched their airstrikes. In the process of attacking the camp, there was one particular vehicle they say was loaded with ammunition – with high explosives.
“The vehicle caught fire, but the driver tried to escape. He drove into the camp and that’s where the Kenyan authorities are saying that the vehicle exploded, causing the civilian casualties.”
Al Jazeera was not able to independently confirm the military’s claims.
Battling al-Shabab
Kenya’s conflict with al-Shabab has most recently been sparked by a string of cross-border kidnappings and attacks on civilians in Nairobi.
While al-Shabab denies responsibility for the attacks, Abu Omar, a spokesman for the group, told Al Jazeera that they were an “answer” to Kenya’s military activities in Somalia.
“What I can confirm to you right now is that we are not to be held responsible for the explosions or the attacks that have taken place in the Kenyan capital. The trouble that’s brewing up in Nairobi is simply an answer to the Kenyan military’s hostility towards the people of Somalia,” Abu Omar said.