Yesterday’s horror at Dusit D2 hotel at 14 Riverside Drive in Nairobi’s Westlands has opened scars of past terror attacks in Kenya.
The August 21, 2013 attack on Westgate Mall was executed in almost a similar manner. Westgate is barely four kilometres from the scene of yesterday’s attack. Sixty seven people died in the 2013 attack.
In both cases, the attackers, armed with guns, bombs and grenades held occupants hostage.
Al-Shaabab terror group claimed responsibility for the Westgate Mall attack. The terrorists said it was a reprisal on Kenya’s military campaign against it in Somalia.
The government said the mall’s hostage situation and random shooting were sustained by four al-Shaabab insurgents. It reported that the four were killed by security forces on rescue operation.
Their bodies have never been shown to the public.
The hostage situation lasted several hours, resulting in the death of tens of shoppers and workers before specialised security teams took over the evacuation mission.
The specialised security units engaged the assailants for 48 hours.
Police charged four people suspected to have aided the attackers to execute their mission at the mall.
Last Monday, Nairobi chief magistrate Francis Andayi acquitted Abdikadir Adan, alias Adan Dheq, for lack of evidence.
The other three - Mohamed Abdi, Liban Omar and Hussein Mustafah - were ruled to have a case to answer.
Dheq had been charged with providing accommodation to Mohamed Abdi in his house along Muyuyu Avenue in Eastleigh, knowing he had committed an act of terrorism.
He faced another charge of procuring a Kenyan identity card in Mandera on July 13, 2010, while he was a national of Somalia.
The freed man was also accused of being in Kenya unlawfully.
The prosecution has more than 140 people lined up to testify against the suspects.
On April 2, 2015, the country woke up to the news of an attack on Garissa University. The attack which al-Shabaab also claimed to have carried out, left 147 students dead and 79 others injured.
The attackers gained entry after killing two guards. They indiscriminately opened gunfire on students with their main target being non-Muslims. More than 700 students were held hostage.
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An overnight curfew was declared in Garissa and three neighbouring counties. Also as part of their revenge mission against the country’s military operation in Somalia, the Shaabab insurgents launched an attack on Kenyan military-run Amisom camp in El Adde town of Somalia in 2016.Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the El Adde attack.
The attack remains Kenya’s greatest military disappointment since independence and to date the government is yet to issue an official figure of the number of soldiers killed in the attack.
In 1998, al-Qaeda terror unit orchestrated the bombing of the US Embassy at the Moi Avenue and Haile Selasie Avenue roundabout.
Other terror attacks in the country include one on the Norfolk Hotel in 1980, whose responsibility was claimed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Another attack was carried out on Paradise Hotel in Kilifi county.
The attackers rammed a barricade outside the hotel with an all-terrain vehicle loaded with explosives, killing 13 people and injuring 80 others.
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