 Ieidwch i gyd, am ymdegwch i'r Gweithio, fel y byddwch i'r newid ystod yma. Rhywbeth eich bodi'n gweld Richard Downey ar y program africau. Rhaid fyddai'n cael ei ddweud o'r ddweud oedd ydych chi'n ei ddweud o'r cyflodiad Cenniwys wedi'i gwneud o'r terysunau ar y spotlitech. Wrth gydag wedi bod yn wneud ysbryd yma o'r anfertyd i'r ysgogel, oedd wedi eu ddweud o ddweud o'r ysgogel ar yn dda yn 4 Alshabab Gunman ond y rampage yn y Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi killing almost 70 people. The attacks starkly illustrated the terrorist threat faced by Kenya from Al Shabab and its local affiliates. Despite the recent death of Shabab, Amir, Ahmad, Godane, no one's under illusions that this threat is substantially diminished from where we stand right now. The Kenyan authorities with support from its allies including of course the United States have been proactive in facing this grave threat. Notably Kenya sent its troops into Somalia almost three years ago and they remain there today. But their fight against terrorism has come under increasing scrutiny. Westgate raised many, many serious questions which remain largely unaddressed about the ability of security agencies to cooperate with each other. In responding effectively to terrorism and there's growing concern that innocent civilians are being caught in a crossfire of Kenya's fight against terrorism. Specifically Somali Kenyans and Somali refugees. After all the very groups whose cooperation could be most valuable to the authorities. But who instead are being treated as enemies in many cases abused, rounded up, deported and in some instances allegedly killed. We're going to examine some of these issues this afternoon taking into account the evolving security situation in Somalia and how it relates to Kenya, its people and its Somali guests and Somali Kenyan citizens as well. And also consider the implications of Kenya's counterterrorism policies and actions for the United States. Which has after all a very strong security relationship with Kenya and supports some of the units facing allegations of abuse such as the anti-terrorism police unit or ATPU. So we have a really distinguished panel of experts, regional experts and Somali and Kenya experts to speak with you today. We're going to hear first from Lauren Plock Blanchard who's a specialist in African affairs with the Congressional Research Service. He recently visited Kenya as part of a congressional staff delegation to look at some of the questions we're discussing today. We're also going to hear from Mark Hyarl Nell, who's senior advocate with Refugees International. He was also recently conducted field work in Kenya both in Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp near the border with Somalia and in Nairobi as well. And his work that's emerged from that has just come out in a report entitled Between a Rock and a Hard Place. And then finally, we're delighted to be joined by Ken Menckhouse from Davidson College, renowned Somalia expert. It's come up for the days, we're very appreciative of that from North Carolina. And he'll shed some light on recent security developments in Somalia and put them into the Kenyan context for us including some insights that he's also going from recent field work in Northern Kenya as well. So without further ado, let's start with Lauren and work our way back up to me and then we'll open for questions from all of you. Thank you. I drew the short straw to start this off. I want to thank CSIS and Richard Downey for convening this today. This is a really timely topic yesterday over the weekend. Many of you saw that the Amazon forces in Southern Somalia took Barawi, which was really sort of a key stronghold for Al-Shabaab. That along with Akman Godane's death portends some very interesting things for Al-Shabaab, but I think it is far too soon to say that Al-Shabaab is on the decline. I think maybe we're looking at more of a shift. And that is very concerning for Kenya, which is sort of increasingly on the front line of this war. Terrorism is not a new phenomenon in Kenya. It dates back to the 80s. The Norfolk Hotel was bombed by Palestinian terrorists back in 1980. Obviously you're all very familiar with the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2002 attacks against an Israeli airliner and against a hotel in Mombasa. But then a real sort of uptick in terrorist activity in the last few years, particularly in the aftermath of Kenya's military incursion into Somalia in October of 2011. And so what I want to talk today a bit about is the notion of this threat as a distinctly Kenyan phenomenon and how the Kenyans are going about responding to it. I think there is a dangerous tendency and a concern that Al-Shabaab is portrayed as a Somali problem. And as the UN General Assembly discussions on foreign fighters have highlighted, this is not the case. The Kenyans within Al-Shabaab composed the sort of largest population of foreign fighters in Al-Shabaab. And by many accounts, that foreign fighter component of Kenyans may be growing. The question is, what is their ultimate aim? And some would argue that that aim is to go back to Kenya and build the insurgency within Kenya. So I think that is very concerning obviously for the Kenyans right now and also concerning for Kenya's international partners. The international community has a large presence in Kenya. It is home to one of the UN headquarters in the world. Obviously many of us have our largest diplomatic presence there. There is a large private sector community there. I mean Kenya is the hub for transport and finance for East Africa. So there is a wealth of Western targets but also wealth of Kenyan targets. And the counter-terrorism co-operation relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom in Kenya sort of goes way back definitely to 1998. And that relationship has been a strong one. It's gone through some hurdles but I think now it is increasingly going through a very tense moment. Some of the recent allegations that have been raised by Human Rights Watch, by OSI, by local groups like Muslims for Human Rights in Kenya about abuses conducted in the context of counter-terrorism operations. Other related events, I think Mark is going to discuss in greater detail Operation Usalama Watch, which is the roundup of Somali refugees in Nairobi. And this sort of increasing perception by Kenyans and particularly Somali Kenyans of collective punishment that all Somali Kenyans are sort of being lumped in with Al-Shabaab. And that more broadly Muslim Kenyans are being targeted in the context of these anti-terrorism operations. So these are concerning trends and concerning as the United States tries to figure out how to deepen the counter-terrorism relationship in the context of very serious threats. I think you've probably all seen that the United States Embassy, which is the largest U.S. diplomatic presence in Africa, has had to sort of re-evaluate its presence. They've moved a number of regional positions elsewhere. They are restricting TDY temporary deployments to Nairobi. They have suspended a number of regional conferences and of course Kenya was always an easy destination for these events. It's easy to get to and has a lot of venues. And the Peace Corps program closed earlier this year or not closed, excuse me, suspended. So that is sort of a clear sign of the worry that we have about the threat. We've seen what appeared to be an increasing intent to target Western targets. There was what appears to be an attempt to attack Jomo Kenyata International Airport back in January. There was the discovery of a very frightening and sophisticated, well, well-hidden car bomb in March in Mombasa that appeared designed specifically to get past sort of the western security mechanisms, car checks, bomb checks. And those are all signs that Al Shabaab is intent on targeting either Western or, at the very least, high-profile Kenyan targets and indicates perhaps an uptick from their sort of lower-level grenade and IED attacks that they've been perpetrating for the last few years around Kenya. To speak briefly about the Kenyan response, obviously, the Kenyans have been very engaged in counterterrorism, border security, and sort of dating back to 2009 were increasingly focused on how to deal with the problem in Somalia, shall we say, training, reportedly training militias dating back to 2009. And then obviously, in 2011, moving in militarily with Operation Linda and She and joining MSOM in 2012. Since then, the Al Shabaab response has gone up in terms of attacks inside Kenya. And obviously, the Westgate attack in September of last year was the deadliest attack since 1998. And then we have very worryingly what appears to be Al Shabaab's attempt to manipulate local politics with their Peccatonia attacks near Llamu earlier this year. They have very savilly sort of tried to play on local grievances, Muslim grievances related to Christian and Kikuyu presence on the coast to attract recruits for the Peccatonia attack. And you see in a lot of their propaganda a very savvy effort to sort of coalesce the Muslim community against sort of this common vision of Islam being under attack by the Kenyan government and by its Western allies. They have a very flashy Swahili and English publication you can find online called Gaidimantani. Ken may speak about this more. If you get a chance to look at it, it gives you a very good idea of how they are appealing to the Kenyan public. And I think there is a significant question about whether or not the Kenyan government's response and its public relations strategy to dealing with these various allegations of abuses conducted in the context of counterterrorism operations really are balancing out what Al Shabaab is putting out. So I would raise that as a concern. I'm going to try to stop my remarks here. Oh, I will speak a little bit about the US response. Again, as I said, the US has a very deep and strong relationship with Kenya in terms of counterterrorism cooperation. Military assistance through Department of Defense training equip authorities is now over $100 million to support both Kenya's internal border security capacities as well as their engagement in Amazon. And then you have between 10 and $15 million annually that's generally been provided to support the capacity of Kenyan law enforcement authorities. Not all of that is for counterterrorism. A significant portion of that recently has been focused on police oversight and reform. But you do have several million dollars a year that's focused on building the capacity of the Kenyan police to respond to terrorist attacks. It's critical incident response. It's building their forensic investigative capacity. It's building their bomb disposal capacity. It really sort of a wide range of things that the United States is doing. Border airport and seaport security building intelligence capacity. So there are a lot of different avenues for cooperation. Some concern that some of these types of engagements may become a bit stove piped and that there is not enough sort of lessons learned sharing about how to work with the Kenyans on this. And I think that's a bit of a concern in terms of some of the shortcomings that were raised in terms of the Kenyans response to Westgate. A lot of concerns about the lack of command and control. Excuse me. And a lot of concern about the military's role in responding to Westgate. They were an unsuitable actor that wasn't really sort of prepared for responding to a civilian incident of that nature. A year later it is not clear where we are in terms of a lot of the recommendations that were made post Westgate. And in the aftermath of them, Peccatoni, I think you've got some new concerns about intelligence warnings that were ignored about the slow response to the attack which went on for hours and hours and hours. And then I think there are also concerns about whether or not the Kenyan response is too reactive and not enough forward leaning in terms of addressing this notion of extremism as a domestic phenomenon and not something that is simply a Somali or Somali-Kenyan phenomenon. There's a lot of food for thought here and maybe I'll leave the rest for my colleagues in Q&A. Great. Thanks so much, Lauren. It's a real privilege to be on a panel with Lauren and Ken. And thanks to CSIS for hosting and Jennifer and Richard for putting this together. As Richard said, I work for Refugees International. If you don't know it's an independent research and advocacy organization focused on displacement issues. And I've been going to Kenya for about three years now in this capacity to look at the situation for Somali refugees both in the camps in the north and also in the cities. And then going into Somalia to look at internally displaced Somalis. And so this last trip was in July and I traveled actually with my colleague Alice Thomas in the second row. So if there's anything I say that you disagree with or that's incorrect, just talk to Alice. Thanks, Alice. So I mean the impetus for the trip in July was really to look at the impact of the latest crackdown by the Kenyan government against Somalis. At the end of March there was an announcement that all urban refugees who had been living in cities and had been registered there had to immediately move to camps. And then about a week later there was the announcement of Operation Usulama Watch which sensibly was a separate counter terror operation but inevitably Somali refugees became quite caught up in it. And then unfortunately I had the chance to be back in Kenya last week to do a bit of follow up so I can comment a bit on the current situation. I mean the bottom line is that not only is an encampment policy and effort to round Somalis up and put them in camps, not feasible or realistic in the current context. But the effort to enforce the policy has done quite a great deal of damage of course to refugees themselves but it's also created challenges for the Kenyan government. But certainly there are steps we think that can be taken to improve the situation to mitigate vulnerabilities and also protect asylum space. Just for a bit of context, I mean there's been historically waves of crackdowns and periods of calm in Kenya with regard to Somali refugees for years. But I think what was so discouraging and tragic about the current situation is that of late Kenya had actually been making pretty significant strides in accepting the rights of urban refugees and allowing refugees to register in urban areas. And together with UNHCR had been extending rights for access to health care and education. I think it's quite different meeting with folks who have come from Somalia and are living and trying to make a living in anisli neighbourhood of Nairobi without the need for food delivery or shelter assistance. And this sort of a level of dignity that's a bit different than being in a camp. And so it's pretty remarkable the advances that were being made for the rights of urban refugees. And by 2012 there was, you know, we know about the hundreds of thousands of people that are living in Dadaab and in Khukuma in the north. But there was about 55,000 people who had been registered legally to live in Nairobi. But then in December 2012, the sort of beginning of this next crackdown, the government made an announcement that citing national security concerns all refugees had moved to camps. Registration would stop. Any programs for refugees in urban areas had to end. But what was pretty remarkable is that a local Kenyan legal aid organisation took the issue to court and they won. And what the judge stated is just such a remarkable ruling. He said, a real connection must be established between the affected persons and the danger to national security posed. And how the indiscriminate removal of all urban refugees would alleviate the insecurity and threats in those areas. The state has not demonstrated that the proliferation of refugees in urban areas is the main source of insecurity. And I think what was so remarkable about the ruling is that it was focused primarily on issues relating to Kenyans constitution rather than kind of expanding it to international law. So after this ruling things got back to normal. The Kenyan government actually began restarting their registration program for refugees in urban areas. But of course as Lauren described the security situation in Kenya remained tense. There was the tragic Westgate attack among other attacks. And on March 26 we had another announcement by the government in direct contradiction to the court ruling which again said, okay now we're serious, all refugees have to go to camps. And then again a few days later followed by Operation Islamowatch. And this time there was a group of Eastley businessmen who took the issue to court. But the same judge actually ruled an exact opposite verdict and upheld the government's encampment policy. And I'm happy to discuss the issues around the legal case further. So ultimately the government in an effort to demonstrate that it was enforcing this policy did forcibly relocate roughly around 3,000 refugees to camps. It was primarily Somalis but there were also Congolis, South Sudanese, Ethiopians, even ethnic Somalis who were Kenyan citizens who were caught up in the roundups. And their experiences were pretty horrific. We spoke to a number of people who described just her weeks in detention cells where they didn't have access to toilets and people were just urinating and defecating on the floor and people had to sleep there. There were lactating mothers who were rounded up and arrested and separated from their babies. Sick people denied without medical care. We spoke to a woman whose son's arm was broken when he was thrown into a police lorry. And it wasn't until a few weeks later when he was actually taken up to a camp that he could access the International Rescue Committee's hospital in Dadaab. So when we went in July the goal was to get to Nairobi and then go up to the camps and talk to people who had been relocated and find out about their experiences and what their plans were going forward in terms of restarting their lives now in a camp. And what we found was about 90% of the people had already moved back to the city. They'd made a life for themselves in the city and the idea of sitting in a camp wasn't an option. Given how amenable Kenyan police are to bribes, many people bribed their way back, they used human smugglers and they said it was worth the risk because they wanted to get back to their jobs selling tea in the streets of Eastley. There were some men who needed access to specialized medical care. Parents wanted to get their kids back in the school. And so despite the continuing threat of arrest and abuse, the opportunities to be in the city to access these resources and to live a more dignified life were worth the risk. I guess what's difficult is that the government is now trying to, to its credit, to have exemptions for people who do want to live in the city and they even have a form that you can fill out and explain in your reason for why it'd be better to live in the city than the camp medical education security. But when we asked refugees if they'd be willing to fill this out, they said there's no way to help because they've already risked and illegally taken a trip back to Nairobi. The idea of then presenting themselves to the government to officially become legal wasn't an option. So the bottom line is that rather than actually achieving an enforcement of the encampment policy, people are back in the city but are living further underground and just doing everything they can to avoid encounters with the police. So certainly much has been documented about the abuse that happened during Operation Usulama Watch by Human Rights Watch and other groups. And certainly in the report we put out, we tried to document some firsthand accounts as well. It was certainly discouraging at the time that there wasn't more public outcry from donor governments like the U.S. from UNHCR, which was a mandate to protect refugees. And a number of the refugees we spoke to said they felt sort of abandoned by HCR and the international community. I guess just a word on the police abuse is that, you know, for full context there's no question that not all police are malicious, not all police are abusers, and Kenya's dealing with very real and serious security threats that Lauren outlined and those threats relate to U.S. national interests as well. But when you had a combination of an encampment policy with a counter-terror operation, it just put the abuse on steroids and took it to another level and that's what we're trying to document. And it was kind of a free-for-all. I mean there's a lot of documentation of the different police units, the general services unit, administrative police. In this case we had the park police. I mean everyone was involved in kind of getting into Eastley and engaging in operation. And I think that another issue too was that many of the refugees we spoke to said that it wasn't... It was hard for them to believe that counter-terror was the actual objective because for most of them they were just asked to pay a bribe to avoid arrest. We heard the story of these one group of guys who lived in an apartment and basically every night the police would come and ask for a bribe in order for them to avoid arrest. The police came five nights in a row and by the fifth night they didn't have any money left so they basically got some night bags together and were ready to be taken off to the Casa Rani camp. So the message for them was if you wanted to avoid arrest, pay the bribe, if not you're going to prison. It didn't have anything to do with Al Shabaab. And then I guess just one final note on the reaction to the abuses. I mean there's been a good deal of pushback from officials within the Kenyan government on how the abuse is reported and whether it is placed in the full context in relation to Kenya's security concerns. And I think there's some concerns on the part of Kenya that by promoting inappropriate behaviour by Kenyan security services it contributes to a narrative that those who are trying to delegitimize the Kenyan state can kind of grab on to. And I guess we would just say that our objective is the opposite. That by reporting on the abuses it's an effort to push for positive change, not only to improve the lives of refugees, but to improve the relations between police and the refugee community. Which I'm not a security expert, but I would hope that this would be helpful in Kenya's effort to target and apprehend actual terrorists rather than targeting the entire Somali refugee community. Now just to finish up, I think it's important to understand a little bit about what's happening on the Somali side of the border. Because in addition to trying to push folks into camps, the Kenyan government is quite eager for Somalis to return home. Just one quote from Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for the Interior in July said that, quote, ensuring that the refugees are in their designated camps is the beginning. The next move is to close the camps, and I reiterate that the refugee camps have outlived their purpose. I don't think the camps are going to close anytime soon, but that's the mentality that's there right now. Certainly there's been some positive steps in the security front with the retake of Barway and the interests of the U.S. soon to open up or have an ambassador appointed to Somalia. But just on a few of the humanitarian indicators, recently the Somali government declared drought in six regions of the country. Food prices are soaring, 1 million Somalis face acute food insecurity, and the very military offensive that pushes out Al Shabaab also conserved to displace civilians. Additionally, inside Mogadishu, where many ID internally displace people live, many of those camps are controlled by warlords and gatekeepers who actually steal the aid for themselves. So it's quite a concerning situation on the Somali side of the border, and given that we don't expect there to be mass returns anytime soon, despite some hopefully positive things on the political front, we were hopeful that the steps can be taken now to improve what's happening inside Kenya. So just very briefly to conclude. One thing that was pretty important is there was a really remarkable report by Kenya's independent policing oversight authority, created by the authority, was created by parliament in 2011, and they produced a very candid, detailed report of abuses that happened during Oslama Watch, along with recommendations to reform the police services. And I think that Kenya acting to implement those reforms would go quite a long way. A very basic thing is like holding refresher courses on human rights, improving relations between police and the communities they serve, and even just improving the hygienic conditions and the detention cells. And I think security sector partners like the U.S. could also be helpful in offering technical support to implement those recommendations. On the part of UN Refugee Agency, which again has a mandate to protect refugees, I think it's not a secret that there was, I guess, a tactical decision to remain relatively quiet during the period of abuse in order to try to maintain good working relationship with the Kenyan government. But I think given the extent of the abuses and the fact that not only were people brought to camps in quite a horrific way, but also several hundred Somalis were deported back to Mogadishu, I think reexamining that strategy in the event of a future crackdown would be worthwhile. And then also UNHCR itself, it has an urban refugee policy, but it only has one senior international staff who's actually dedicated to working on urban refugee issues. And so matching resources with the policy will go a long way as well. And then very finally, there's some really strong Kenyan civil society organizations that have been around for decades that provide legal support and advocacy for refugee rights. And so I think continued donor support will be extremely valuable because it, you know, as important it is to have three white people up here talking about issues in Kenya. I think the role of Kenyan organizations like Kitu Achasharia and Refugee Consortium at Kenya, just to name a couple, having that voice as they lobby with the Kenyan government and provide legal support is pretty remarkable. So I hope they're able to sustain their work. So I'll stop there. Thanks very much and look forward to the discussion. Thank you very much Bob. Thank you. I've been asked to speak for a few minutes about the current status of al-Shabaab in Somalia, and then the implications of that status of al-Shabaab for Kenya. And at the outset I think I'll say what we all know about our knowledge of al-Shabaab. And that is there are some things we know and there are some things that we think we know. There's a lot we don't know. This is not a transparent organization. Issues related to the change in leadership and what it means for the organization, very, very difficult to say. So I'll try not to step beyond the bounds of my limited competence on this topic. If I could, I'd like to start by reflecting on what we thought we knew about al-Shabaab the day before Westgate. The day before Westgate, what we thought we knew about Shabaab was that it was in crisis. In fact, some of us were writing it's obituary. It had been pushed out of Mogadishu. It had been pushed out of some of the most strategic areas of the lower Shabeli in Somalia, increasingly in the countryside. It had lost the very valuable port city of Kismayo to a combination of Kenyan forces and the Ross-Camboni militia. And then it had had, in addition, it had had a series of episodes of infighting that were already giving us clues about some of the discord within the organization that culminated in the summer of 2012 in a bloody internal purge in which many of the top leaders in Shabaab were either killed or driven out of the organization. Most of the foreigners who had joined Shabaab fled as well, felt unsafe as a result of some of their own being targeted by al-Shabaab. What was left of al-Shabaab was a rump organization presided over by hardliner Akbar Ghudani. This looked like the beginning of the end of the organization. Some of us were comparing it to the Khmer Rouge. It wouldn't go away right away, radically violent leader with a core set of supporters but being pushed out into the countryside, increasingly irrelevant to the day-to-day life of Somalis. And at the same time, in Mogadishu, where Shabaab no longer had a large and robust presence, there was an economic boom as the diaspora and others flocked in to invest. People were staying out until late in the evening. There were streetlights provided by the Norwegians and people were celebrating a return to normalcy, all of which appeared to be yet another damning indictment of al-Shabaab, rejection from the Somali people themselves, which is of course critical in all this. And then came Westgate. And within 48 hours, the new zeitgeist was that we had completely overestimated al-Shabaab's weakness that in fact it was a robust and dangerous organization that was capable of this kind of sophisticated bloody attack across borders. It followed the Westgate attack with about six to eight months' worth of additional attacks, some of which were foiled in Kenya but which were quite frightening. Others of which succeeded inside Somalia itself. Attack on the Villa Somalia, the presidential compound, the parliament, the judiciary, the airport entrance, the UN compound. These were very, very sobering attacks that shook the confidence of Somalis, shook the confidence of the international community and raised the specter of an organization that actually had what suddenly appeared to be quite robust capacity to launch what came to be called complex terrorist attacks involving a suicide bomber in one vehicle followed by a second vehicle of gunmen who would rush in and wreak havoc on the intended target. They even reached into Djibouti and hit a restaurant which resulted in the deaths of several European Union forces. Who were they exactly working for? I can't remember at any rate. Cross borders into Djibouti as well. So the new narrative was that Shabaab was incredibly strong across the entire region and that we had gotten it wrong before. Now Shabaab has had another set of setbacks. Its leader, Godane, was taken out in a drone attack not long ago. It has lost still more valuable real estate, the Port of Brawa, the last seaport that it controlled in Somalia. And so now we're getting yet another, one of our famous mood swings about Shabaab that it's on the run and in a world of trouble and what I guess I'd like to say is that we need to stop with the mood swings. The fact is this is an organization that I do believe is in decline. It peaked way back in 2008 in terms of its legitimacy and support among Somalis and the territory that it controlled. It has been in a state of decline for a variety of reasons, mostly due to its internal contradictions. But it is still and will remain for the foreseeable future a dangerous security threat to Somalia, to Kenya, and to the wider region of the Horn of Africa. In part because it doesn't take that much to be a dangerous security threat. What we have learned about Shabaab is it only takes a relatively small number of committed jihadis to launch these kinds of attacks. And when you add to that the fact that its principal rivals in the region with the notable exception of the Ethiopian state but otherwise are quite weak and sometimes venal and corrupt and easily hit in Somalia and Kenya that makes it all the more easy for Shabaab to remain a major terror threat. To give you a sense of how fast we can overreact to Shabaab's fortunes when it lost Barawa this past weekend and another city and is now pushed into the interior. What many commentators were saying is now it no longer has access to seaport revenues and now it can no longer move money, men and materiel in and out of Somalia so now it's trapped inside Somalia. That's unfortunately not true. The reality is that Shabaab will continue to be able to tax the goods that come through not just Barawa but every seaport in Somalia in the interior. It has done that very effectively for a long time. It's got quite a robust capacity. It would put the IRS to shame in terms of its ability to know what is being moved and who's got a salary from where they do tax it and they will continue to tax it whether or not they control the port of Barawa. Likewise, even in Kismayo when they were denied control of that seaport we now know that they were colluding with both the Ross-Camboni militia and the Kenyan military in Kismayo to continue the profitable export of charcoal. So they were getting a cut without even having to do much of the work. We also know that Shabaab will continue to be able to move money, men and materiel in and out of seaports. You don't need to control a seaport to do that in Somalia. You don't need a committed jihadist in your ranks to do that. Anyone for a small and friendly fee will move goods no questions asked and that's been the way the Somali seaports have been operating for a very, very long time. I had the opportunity to read, to be one of the first ones to read some of the translated declassified documents from Al Qaeda related to the Horn of Africa that the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point subsequently published and analysed and one of the thousands of pages of documents back from the early 90s and one of the fascinating ones was the East Africa Al Qaeda cell individuals who were moving back and forth between Kenya and the Somali coast in small boats and dows complaining bitterly in their diary about these Bejuni captains. He's immoral and he smokes and he drinks and he womanizes and he's a terrible, but he always knows the way really well he gets us right where we want to go again. Didn't take a fellow traveler just anyone who's willing to take a fee to move your goods there. Post Brawa, there are some issues and post Godane's death there are some interesting issues related to the future of Shabaab that could affect Kenya. The big one of course is leadership. We don't know much about the newly selected leader Abu Ubaida. We know that he was the governor of Bay and Becol region which is the area that Shabaab continues to hold most of the territory of. He was not the he's not a commander who had direct control over operations though. There are others who do. A gentleman nicknamed Karate has been the chief of operations for Shabaab's secret network called Amniat that's responsible for most of the terrorist attacks most of the assassinations and most of the surveillance which has a real chilling effect on Somalis who would love to do something about Shabaab but are afraid that they'll be knocked off if they are seen as a potential enemy. It could be one of the things we're speculating about is that with Godane's absence we could see the rise of more moderate voices one of our favorite words in Somalia moderate that is to say individuals who are more Islamo nationalists and less inclined to pursue a global jihadi agenda individuals who might be willing more importantly to negotiate a deal with the Somali federal government that is certainly a dream among many Somalis I don't know the exact percentage but I would say I would go so far as to say maybe even most Somalis at this point would prefer a negotiated settlement some kind of a power sharing deal to end this on the grounds that they won't be able to defeat Shabaab and that some of the Shabaab leaders are in fact redeemable and this gets back to the fact that in 2007 2008 we have to remember that Shabaab enjoyed enormous legitimacy in the eyes of most Somalis they represented a just war a defensive jihad against the illegal occupation of Somali territory by Ethiopia and it's been very difficult for a lot of Somalis to let go of that fact that many still have this residual even though they're appalled by much of what Shabaab has done and said a residual sympathy toward the organization would prefer to see it brought into discussions rather than left out in the cold and shot at this may or may not be the majority view in Somalia I don't know but I can tell you that there are some powerful external actors who will oppose this Ethiopia will be quite allergic to this I think the US government would be also quite concerned about bringing Al Shabaab figures into any kind of negotiations whether they are negotiations just toward a ceasefire and an end of hostilities or even a power sharing arrangement the fact is our patriot law and related legislation doesn't allow us to decertify someone once they are linked to a designated terrorist group and so once Shabaab member always a Shabaab member in our legal domain and that's an issue for us I think if we're interested in trying to promote eventually some kind of defections and or negotiated settlement we've got to make sure they've got the legal space within which to do that otherwise if they step out and say I'd like to talk they feel like they run the risk simply themselves and then being eliminated meanwhile we haven't seen many defections from Shabaab we've seen defections of individual fighters lots of fighters but that's not as significant as we'd like it to be the fact is there's a lot of fighters who have been defecting and rejoining Shabaab like windshield wipers over the years there's an enormous amount of movement back and forth between the Somali of army and and Shabaab and this is all driven by pragmatism who can offer me the best deal and this gets to a broader point and that is that Shabaab in Somalia today is not a movement that is defined by its ideological ffervor and commitment there are individuals at the top level who really do embrace radical jihadism but the vast majority of the fighters are just in it because they're getting a salary or they're in it because they've been conscripted in a village or they're in it because of the chance to loot and this we know from the defectors program there's a program where they're interviewed in Mogadishu and we've got a pretty good profile from the people who do that and they're quite convinced that this is not a group of fighters who've been brainwashed in any way where does Shabaab continue to get its support one of the key places that it gets its support is not from radicalized youth but it's from aggrieved clans clans who've gotten the short end of the stick in national politics in Mogadishu politics in politics in the rest of the country they've been left out they've been marginalized and they're mad in some cases their land has been taken over by the more powerful clans that have been using the Somali federal government and its armed forces to appropriate land those grievances are deep after 25 years of civil war in Somalia there is no shortage of grievances and they're deepening by the day it is oxygen for Shabaab Shabaab preys on the groups that are unhappy those groups opportunistically use Shabaab join them as a way of increasing their their negotiating power with others but we've seen this time and time again right now Shabaab's core group of support in Somalia consists of lots and lots of unhappy groups who have in many cases very legitimate profoundly legitimate grievances not least of which include the so-called Somali Bantu minority groups that have been oppressed and marginalized for years there well that's one of the home bases for Shabaab one of the things I find fascinating about Shabaab is that despite this position that it's taking not in any of its public rhetoric adopted a Robin Hood narrative that we represent the downtrodden and oppressed of Somalis against the public why not because they really would prefer to have the support of those powerful clans if they could so they don't want to burn any bridges with them but meanwhile they'll take what they can get from the weaker groups and all that of course is part of the broader tragedy of Shabaab and that is that the downtrodden and oppressed the weak and the marginalized groups are being used as cannon fodder by Shabaab just as they were cannon fodder and famine victims in the past they really have no friends unfortunately among the powerful in Somalia some will go so far is to argue and I'm open to this argument that Shabaab's capacities today in Somalia absent the kind of strong ideological fervor among most of its group but it's continued in very impressive capacity to monitor where money is and to extort taxes from everyone at every level that this is a group that could be moving toward a glorified criminal racket in years to come and this is a very interesting scenario we need to be prepared for I don't think they're there yet I would not make that claim yet but I think it's an interesting proposition that as the group weakens what we could see is in particular which is this network very effective network that does collect money and collect information and engage in political threats and assassination that could turn into a glorified mafia and one that could insinuate itself very easily into the existing government what does all this mean for Kenya one of the things that Shabaab's growing problems in South Central Somalia almost certainly means as and will continue to expand both to the north in Putland and potentially Somaliland and south in Kenya where its prospects are better if the litany of grievances were strong in Somalia they're even stronger in Kenya Shabaab has found very fertile ground among Somali Kenyans among the coastal Muslim population among slum dwellers who aren't even Muslim who are converted and radicalized and they have found no shortage of sympathizers and in some cases recruits there the thing that is fascinating about the Somali Kenyans and Shabaab is that for one of the things we didn't necessarily to go back and just give you some context the Somali civil war produced a huge wave of Somali refugees who passed through Kenya over a million Somalis have passed through Kenya most of whom are now living abroad but many have stayed on and while some are documented and have urban refugee papers there are hundreds of thousands more who live there in some cases they get third country citizenship and then come back with their families and establish businesses in short Somalis whether they are Kenyan Somalis or not and they often purchase Kenyan citizenship so that distinction becomes very problematic they are stakeholders in Kenya and they have lots and lots millions of dollars of business investments real estate investments families in schools there you name it and this for a long time was one of the explanations that we had for why Shabaab hadn't hit Kenya that they were too afraid to blow back from their own community that if they launched a major terrorist attack in Kenya they wouldn't have to worry about what the Kenyan security force did they'd have to worry about what the Somalis did to them and this golden economics set up that the Somalis were enjoying in places like Eastley well that didn't happen the blow back after Westgate did not occur and part of the reason for that is the Somalis sense of solidarity it's very difficult to turn on your own in that particular society but part of it is also the fact that the Kenyan military and security sector reacted the way they did with this heavy handed collective responsibility racial profile ethnic profiling that was precisely what Shabaab wanted the Kenyan government played right into the hands of Shabaab Shabaab loses when the fight is Somalis vs Somalis Shabaab wins when the fight are Somalis vs Non-Somalis and Muslim Somalis vs Christians that was the setup they wanted that is why they attacked Westgate and that is more or less what they've gotten many of their subsequent attacks as Lauren has suggested have been designed to further that set of clashes between non-Somali non-Muslim Kenyans and the rest a couple of final points on what all this means for Kenya first we need to be mindful that the El Shabaab wing or branch or affiliate of Shabaab in Kenya El Hidra has distinct interests of its own and has distinct command and control of its own it may or may not continue along the same path as Shabaab it's conceivable that Shabaab could continue on a descent inside Somalia and even collapse at some point and El Hidra would live on it's bigger than the franchise and at this point it's got enough grievances that this could soon become a franchise that could outlive the original group Shabaab itself a couple of other thoughts and that is that all of this is happening in a very unique context in Kenya and that is the context of devolution and the context of oil exploration and extraction Somali Kenyans have historically, in the northeast have historically been marginalized and lived under emergency rule until 1992 they've got loads of grievances but as Mark was suggesting they've also actually done quite well in recent years surprisingly they have played the game of democratic politics in Kenya and won some of the top positions in past governments have been held by Somali Kenyans they've also done really well in commerce in Eastley and Mombasa and beyond but to most of us, like the Somali Kenyans were major stakeholders in the game and yes Somali Kenyans were still among the poorest in Kenya but things were really looking up for them that they had every reason to embrace the Kenyan political system and embrace their citizenship this past episode Westgate, sorry it was bound to happen without enough coffee this post Westgate security crackdown has set that way back and again Shabab has exploited that Shabab has also got the potential to exploit devolution and this is going to be very interesting to see on the one hand Somali Kenyans now have more power over their own faith than ever before they're electing their own governors their own legislatures they've got their own budgets why would they want anyone to mess that up this is fantastic for them on the other hand the way that devolution has worked played out so far in Northern Kenya has been less than reassuring it has been interpreted as zones the counties have interpreted as zones of exclusive ethnic claims on resources creating winners and losers disputes over borders that have gotten quite lethal Northern Kenya is in short more violent now than it's been in years and there are more aggrieved parties than there were before there are losers in this game as well as winners on top of all of that there's the oil which is exponentially increasing the stakes over who rules in these counties and where clan borders are it runs the risk if things go bad and I think it could go well there's lots of reasons to believe that Northern Kenya need not suffer from a resource curse but if it goes badly Shabab is going to be jumping all over that stuff there sorry that was too long it's all great stuff and thanks to all of you for the fascinating presentations many questions I'm sure from the audience here so I'm going to take groups of two or three at a time microphones will come so please identify yourself and let's start with John as you had your hand up first just up on the front here microphones coming mostly for Lauren and Mark but maybe also for Ken as you both know internally this place Kenians are not just Somalis as you know and they're not just Muslims and in Pekatoni land issues it's not just in Pekatoni as you well know and so my question is for both of you is to what extent has Somali mentioned all this sort of sparked all the other deeper issues that go back to the whole history of Kenya or has it overridden them so it kind of suppresses them even deeper so it has ignited long standing issues in Kenya don't have any drug you do with Somalis or not Thank you and let's go with David as well also at the front David through CSIS I'm told that Alshabab in Kenya is now a thoroughly Kenyan enterprise that although some fighters are Somali the effective leadership of Alshabab in Kenya is now indigenous Kenyans and not necessarily coastal Kenyans that there are a lot of Muslim converts from up-country ethnic communities that historically have not been counted in the Muslim domain and I'm told that the effective mastermind of the raid on Eterni was in fact a Kikuyu Islamic convert against the local Kikuyu community so it seems to me that the problems the Kenyan government faces are actually a great deal worse than you have suggested that I would say that the Somali issue is only one fifth of the problem that the Kenyans face in terms of counter-terrorism that they have alienated Muslim use in the towns at the coast that they have disgruntled largely Muslim but not entirely Muslim communities in the rural parts of the coast particularly in Kuali district where 30% of the land is now owned by Camba then you have the Somali issue a fourth issue is it playing a traditional Kenyan political game which has been exacerbated by devolution and that is ethnic conflict over land and water resources which is now being manipulated by Al Shabab for their own political advantage playing off the game in Lamu and in Tana River and in Kuali and Califi but the fifth dimension is the up country dimension that you now have lots of Kikuyu lots of Kalanjin lots of Abaluya number of Luo who are Muslim converts who are now playing the institutional leadership role in Al Shabab this is no longer a coastal problem it's now a Kenyan-wide problem so far the sort of five clusters have not really merged they are still separate entities which the Al Shabab High Command is working extremely hard to bring together into a perfect storm that would link all five and it doesn't seem to me that the Kenyan government is sufficiently proactive or realising the full dimensions of the problem and where it does recognise the dimensions of the problem it is actually hamstrung by devolution that a number of the governors that belong to the opposition are actually exacerbating the crisis and making it very difficult for the police and security apparatus in Lamu to counter the terrorist threat effectively so what do the Kenyans do if this wider scenario this emerging storm takes place this really does strike me as beyond their capacity it's likely to overwhelm the Kenyan state and simply to concentrate on the Sumali issue is well taken but I think it underestimates the crisis which the Kenyan government is confronting there's more than enough issues out of those two questions or comments to spark some response David has always painted the apocalyptic scenario so Lauren do you want to kick us off and pick out any of those themes that you wish to talk about thank you to both of you the good thing about answering David's questions is he generally has answered most of his questions so I think that is the worrying scenario that we have to be very concerned about and what John has raised these issues are tied there are various call them peripheral call them marginalized communities in Kenya who have long standing grievances that go back to the 70s that are more recent primarily they are dealing with the government in these issues separately the Sumali's the coastal communities other groups and the concern is that Al Shabaab paints a picture that pulls all these groups together the other concern that the Kenyan government has is that the opposition paints a picture that pulls all of these groups together I think that the nightmare scenario for President Kenyata is that Ryla Odinga is resurgent and pulls an opposition coalition together that comprises his old allies in the coast that draws on grievances in the collagen community and sort of pulls together an anti-kikuyu coalition using these grievances of land that everybody shares and that nobody has been able to get the government to act on yet of course you've got a very promising land reform process that could be set in motion by the new constitution but it's slow rolling it's going to be as challenging to address if not more challenging than the long standing corruption problems that haven't been addressed in Kenya other accountability issues so I think there's a lot of cause for concern there on the other hand we do have this new constitution and you do have democratic mechanisms by which these groups can address theoretically their problems politically it's when they feel that that political system is broken and they can't get around it I think what's worrying is the government has tried in the context of the Peketoni to somehow suggest or did initially suggest to be linked to the Mombasa Republican Council which as some of you may know is sort of a political coalition the Kenyan government would suggest it has insurgent aims and has you know linked to militia hiding in the forest I think that there's an interesting study that was recently done I would encourage any of you who are interested to look at it done by Aneli Bota who's a terrorism analyst with the Institute for Security Studies. She's done two parallel studies on radicalization in Kenya and in Somalia and what's interesting is in doing interviews with Al Shabaab members both in Kenya and Somalia she finds two very different paths to radicalization if you would call it that and as Ken has suggested the sort of path to Al Shabaab membership in Somalia is driven by sort of a complex set of factors around clan identity and economic motivations and in Kenya it's a very direct path through radical Islam but what's very interesting was she found you know overwhelmingly that these 95 Al Shabaab self-identified Al Shabaab members that she had interviewed were driven to Al Shabaab because of their religious beliefs that the final thing that pushed them over the edge for 65% of her respondents was the government's counter-terrorism strategy and they sort of in free form response named a number of different actions. Some of them talked about the allegations of extrajudicial killings, the assassination of prominent Imams. Some of them spoke of direct impact on their communities roundups raids and there was this overarching theme that the government was out to get the Muslim community in Kenya and I think that is a worrying thing whether or not that is you know whether or not the Kenyan government is responsible for all of these abuses. The perception is there and the perception is fueling this push to radicalization and it's something that the Kenyan government has got to address and it's got to address with its beat cops and with its anti-terrorism police with its GSU this is the PR war that they are losing right now. Again I would encourage any of you who are interested to look at Guy Dumitani. One of their first publications was put out right after the killing of Aboud Rogo and they did this very interesting letter in English. The Muslims in Kenya must understand that they are being deliberately targeted because of their religious identity and that helping their Muslim brothers is a religious obligation that falls upon the Muslims in Kenya to boycott the coming elections and not to be repeatedly deluded by illusory promises of the government. Not only is the participation of elections prohibited in Islam but it is the current government that has terribly failed to protect the rights of Muslims in Kenya. This is the narrative that they are using to draw a recruit so I think it's very concerning if that becomes an attractive narrative beyond sort of the traditionally expected populations that the Kenyan government is looking at if they sort of increasingly are recruiting from among up country populations from western Kenya. These are not areas that the Kenyan intelligence community has focused I think a lot of its efforts on and has a lot of inroads into. Just briefly just to reference the issue related to other displaced populations in Kenya. Certainly Kenya has been an extremely generous host of refugees for decades not just from Somalia but from Sudan now South Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo I think the concern with the and obviously they're all impacted by the policies towards refugees and displaced people but what came out in the in the report of the independent police oversight authority was that the Islam watch was internally known within the government as operation and sanitization easily and again the perception that it's really targeted against Muslim population, Somali population and that it's an approach that serves to entrench divisions rather than bring people together so that's been the main concern. We had a few more questions at the front let's, well loads of hands up now Dominic you had your hand up and the gentleman at the front here as well and Jennifer wanted to chip in. Thank you very much Dominic Balthasar from the EU Institute for Security Studies. I have a question that goes to Ken can you talk about the mood swings of the international community with regards to judging the strength or weakness of al-Shabaab and you were also talking about al-Shabaab having enjoyed most local support in 2008-2009 but that that is being in decline. Now I was wondering whether you could shed some more light on how likely you deem another mood swing to take place amongst Somalis with regards to al-Shabaab and what conditions you deem this likely and what should be done to counter such a mood swing, thanks. Gentleman in the middle here. Yeah, my name is Kanamuchiri from the Kenya Defence Forces working at the Embassy here in DC. Let me first of all start by appreciating the way you have identified the problem of the refugees particularly in Kenya and also the crisis that there is and start by saying that Kenya government is already adhering to work with international partners to solve some of those problems, especially the refugees. But at the same time I would be quick to say that the refugee crisis in Kenya is actually age old. It's a long, long time problem which escalated with the fallout of the Somali Government in 1991 and the 20 years of lack of government in Somalia and when this problem and the terrorism came into play and the posting the insecurity problem to Kenya from the common border with Somalia that is when the KDF actually went into Somalia in pursuit of in an effort to pacify that area and bring sanity in that country. In fact, the KDF in Kashin into Somalia was mainly a national effort than a regional effort. When they went in 2011 the surprising thing that happened during that time is that as much as they were going into Somalia most of the refugees numbers from Somalia increased into Kenya. So, as much as people may look at it like it was an incasion of the KDF into Somalia the Somalis were actually seeking refuge in the invading country. That is what I want to say. That is one. Now, the other thing that I want to bring to form is the issue of the post 2013 Westgate invasion. The screening of the nationals after that invasion did not in any way target one community and the total numbers and we have the figures of those who are screened. The Somalis were about a thousand out of 2446. The Europeans, they were about 500 at another 500 of Kenyans of various communities or the others were actually from another 22 countries. So, the broad spectrum of those who are screened we have the data and the data was actually revealed. Again, coming from that screening effort, somebody Mark Keane actually presented that the main problem was that those screened were being taken back to the camp. The age-old refugee status in Kenya and problem in Kenya has always been handled by the UNHCR. The refugee camps are not run by Kenya and the current president and the previous president, the immediate former president, Mike Evacchi, are on record as having called for UNHCR to come and assist in the problem of repatriating the refugees back to the country. We will not solve this problem of the refugees by taking them to the cities. By having the UNHCR taking these refugees to the cities. It is good and better for any international community or body to come up with a solution that is going to solve out this problem. If we identify this problem of taking them back to the concentration camps or to the camps which are run by the UNHCR then we should be comparing with what is happening in the other neighbouring countries how are refugees in those countries being handled? That should be a restaurant and it should be taken into consideration that Kenya is willing and wanting to be tested on the refugee crisis. Thank you very much. Thanks. I had two questions. One I think follows on that point and Mark I'm glad you said Kenya is being a generous host of refugees because I do think there is being a lack of acknowledgement of the massive not on this panel necessarily but in general of the massive burden and task that Kenya has had in hosting Dadaab which is something five times a capacity maybe even more a source of radicalisation there has been some radicalisation that has taken place environmental impacts and conflicts with the local communities as well over water use and so forth. This is not to the plight of the Somalis in those communities is awful and the idea of then being deported back to Mogadishu equally awful but I do wonder Mark if you can talk a little bit about what has been and to this point kind of the regional role in helping with the refugee crisis and the international role if UNHCR is kind of overwhelmed in Dadaab as well. Other countries are not that welcoming of taking some of Somalis into their communities here or in Europe or elsewhere there are many but there are many more in Kenya so it is maybe talk a little bit about how the rest of the international community can help on that on the refugee situation not just the security situation. Then the second question is in response to the report and these allegations of abuse have there been investigations launched has there been any kind of sign of going after bad apples or what some of these incidents have been dismissed as? Thanks very much for these questions so there are specific questions there for Ken and Mark so he wants to Ken would you want to kick us off? If I could jump in on the refugee question too with just a two finger remark and that is one of the things we haven't mentioned yet but that everyone knows is that the vast majority of Somalis who have crossed a border into Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen and Saudi aren't interested in going back home anyway. This is a diaspora remittance based economy they have powerful interest in getting abroad their families don't want them to come back once they've crossed into Kenya they're half way there and many of them end up stranded in Kenya for the rest of their lives but this is part of the bigger problem in Somalia it's chief export is its own people and for those of you who don't follow the Somalia economy $1.5 billion a year goes back in remittances that dwarfs any other source of income so for families to get someone out is absolutely critical we had a case of Somalis stuck in Libya during the Libyan war and the British Somali diaspora was able to arrange a plane for them but the only place they could go was back to Somalia and they said forget it we'll stay in Libya we'll take our chances you know they were half way there Could Somalis have another mood swing themselves on Al Shabab and I think yes and no I don't think Shabab will ever enjoy again the kind of legitimacy it had when it was fighting the Ethiopian occupation in 2007-2008 Somalis no better now what the group stands for but Somalis clan leaders in particular are very pragmatic they don't like to back a loser they will back a winner and so that could cut in both directions if Shabab starts to look like it's bleeding and is a lost cause we could see some very rapid defections from whole clans that have been providing them support conversely if Shabab starts to look stronger and stronger and is a looks like a winner we could see a whole bunch jumping back on board not for ideological reasons just for practical reasons some other reasons if the Somali federal government fails particularly if the Somali federal government fails in one task and that is governing newly recovered space right now Amazon and the Somali security sector are moving from town to town they've taken every major urban town from Shabab but they're not governing it effectively and in fact it's often leaving people worse off than before that's driving some of these local populations back into Shabab's arms because the one thing they had with Shabab at least was security if the Somali security forces are praying on them and actually making things worse if Somalis feel besieged by the international community again if there were God forbid but if there were more terrorist attacks and there were crackdowns on Somalis abroad in Kenya and other countries I could see Shabab tapping that in ways that would get them more support and I think the other reality is that the longer Amazon stays the risk that Shabab is going to be able to use that the occupation on the part of neighboring countries to its advantage Amazon needs to stay for now it's essential but it shouldn't stay a minute longer than it has to No thanks very much for your comments and also Jennifer the question and I mean you can't underscore enough the important role that Kenya has played in the region in hosting refugees from a whole host of countries and so is an understanding that there's going to be a bit of awareness after several decades and I think one of the challenges in trying to enforce an encampment policy is that the camps themselves we know are quite insecure my friends have been kidnapped from the camps and taken into Somalia and so I think a concern is that by expanding the numbers into a camp that is under resource and overcrowded and again there's environmental impacts on the region creates more challenges because when people are living in cities they're unable to be self-reliant there isn't a need for the kind of external aid that you need when you're in a camp and I think that's part of the issue is that the number of crises that are being experienced not just in Africa when you're looking at South Sudan, Central Africa and Republic, Mali but obviously in the Middle East and other parts of the world the amount of resources available to respond aren't matching the needs and so it's true while on the one hand I think there's reason to look closely and examine Kenya's engagement with refugees it has to be matched by external support to be able to lift some of the burden that Kenya's is sharing I think on the issue of how it is being dealt with regionally certainly there's also tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of refugees in Ethiopia in other countries the traditional sort of durable solutions for refugees aren't always, isn't exactly leading to much optimism right now when you look at returning to Somalia which again isn't a desired option for many especially when the conditions are the resettlement numbers are quite low and obviously local integration into Kenya is a animosity around that there is a UN refugee commission high level panel and initiative by the refugee commissioner to explore creative solutions trying to get support coping mechanisms that Somalis themselves are using as Ken was saying the very mobile population and a lot of people are finding it difficult to live in Nairobi are now moving to Uganda South Africa obviously it creates challenges when you're looking at third country movement but if there's ways to understand those what Somalis are already doing to cope and to try to support those rather than to try to force these three durable solutions which just aren't going anywhere at the moment but no thanks for your question and then I'll briefly address Jennifer's question about investigations I think the independent police oversight authorities report on was a very important first step it's their first monitoring report and it is important because it has it's legally binding and the police are required to respond my understanding is that they are supposed to present a report responding to the concerns by mid October so we should sort of have a first sense of what the police response to the recommendations of Ipoa's report are in the coming weeks they are also coming out with a new report if it hasn't already been released that I've missed on the impeccatoni attacks and the security force response so I think that's going to be very interesting and again I don't want to paint an entirely critical picture of the Kenyan government I think that these advances are very important and we wouldn't have seen them a few years ago but there is a capacity constraint among these new reform institutions the Ipoa the internal affairs mechanism now within the police they are short staffed they are for the moment under trained it's sort of representative of the broader problem in terms of lacking investigative skills and they are working to build those capacities but that's going to take time it doesn't happen overnight but the ability to investigate extrajudicial killing these high profile incidents that capacity may not be there in some cases perhaps the political will arguably is not there so I think some of those incidents are going to take time but it would be helpful to see some more public rhetoric addressing the concerns Ambassador Godek our ambassador to Kenya gave a speech about two weeks ago urging the Kenyan government to be self critical about these allegations of abuses and to investigate them and encourage them to take action to promote accountability and I think that's an important message that both the United States and the Brits are sending right now just to add on that I was asking questions about this when I was in Kenya last week and one challenge is that people who'd initially gone forward to report abuses now are fearful about putting themselves out there safety of witnesses and about backlash and so I think just gathering evidence is going to be a challenge in the current context especially when there's concern about the viability of the institutions so we are almost at time I want to give our panelists a chance to say any final remarks that they might have and also maybe just to ask a final question it follows on a little bit from what Lauren was starting to talk about and that's where is the US policy angle on this where is the US leverage and is it willing to use it in fact in discussions with the Kenyan government particularly on the issue of not only the refugee issue but the linked issue of security sector reform is a perennial challenge in Kenya so maybe if you know as we're in a policy institution we'll finish with a few pithy bullet point policy prescriptions and then we can all wrap up and go home so let's start with Ken and then end with Lauren I'll stay away from the US policy question and just say that this past year I did a study of Elshabab's use of new media looking at its messaging and one of the conclusions that I came away with was that it didn't in fact have a whole lot of original messaging what it had done very very successfully is it appropriated a set of grievance narratives that had already been in existence among Somalis both in Somalia and in Kenya and just repackaged it in more radical Islamist garb and it's a reminder of the fact that Shabaab could be could be eroded could be maybe even defeated but the grievances that it has tapped will remain and if we don't address them something else is going to come up and exploit those grievances I just think the situation now is certainly more calm in terms of the level of tension and the kind of abuse that was happening back in April, May and June and so things have calmed down but I think that because things are calm there should be an urgency now to try to figure out how to engage with the Somali community in ways that are more difficult when it's a more tense situation I think that it's naive to think that there won't be some kind of attack in the future and so there's legitimate concerns about another crackdown against the refugee population so I think again just having an urgency as things are calm now on the part of UNHCR to be as engaged and connected and involved in outreach with the Somali community and again on the part of the Kenyan government that closing registration is unfortunate because registration not only allows the viability and expands rights but there's more comfort and awareness of the population that's in the cities and we know who the people are that are registered and by shutting that down it pushes people underground and creates more uncertainty about the population that we're engaged in so I'll leave it there for your pithy recommendations The Congressional Research Service does not take policy positions I will say the extent of the counter-terrorism cooperation between the United States and Kenya is very important in emphasizing both the level of the threat that the Kenyans and the western community the international community community are facing and it's also an expression of how good the cooperation has been between the United States and Kenya and I want to emphasize this the Kenyans have been a very good and cooperative partner having said that what leverage do we have now given that we give over 100 million dollars in military assistance for the purposes of counter-terrorism and an extensive amount of law enforcement capacity building and intelligence sharing our leverage quite frankly is somewhat limited and we have an important diplomatic message that we can send but we can't simply cut the cooperation right now there are too many US interest at stake in the region and again the threat is too real I will say I think that there are some areas for improvement and I think that there are a lot of improvements sort of in the works but very important is helping to build the Kenyans capacity to investigate prosecute and convict terrorists we've seen too many cases of suspected terrorists going through the court system and being let go Rogo, Makhaburi had all been through the system now whether or not they were guilty the Kenyan courts were not able to convict them and ultimately somebody decided to take measures into their own hands so I think that's concerning and in terms of supporting the Kenyans ability to do this legally and justly is very key and building a credible case against these terrorists is very important and obviously the Kenyans don't want to let these guys go on bail and have them go back to Somalia or go back and then be involved in an attack months later so having said that sending the diplomatic message is important and again trying to identify who are the extremists in the region when and why they're involved in the attacks is something that I think we all need to work on together because it's not a problem that's going away overnight I want to thank all of our panellists it's been a great discussion I know there are more questions than we have time to get to so I apologize for that but please join me in thanking everyone for their participation