Spectre of Westgate looms as al-Shabaab threat grows

For the first time in Kenya's history, a president has taken to wearing military combat fatigues.

The move might amount to little more than a populist gimmick, but it also demonstrates that president Uhuru Kenyatta is keen to show he is making efforts to control the country's growing security threat.

It sometimes seems as though Mr Kenyatta has been fighting a losing battle. Although Kenyan troops have helped circumscribe al-Qaeda-linked Somali jihadis in Somalia as part of UN-backed African Union forces, Kenya itself appears increasingly under threat.

An estimated 600 al-Shabaab militants have returned to Kenya in the past two years, and experts think 1,500 Kenyans may have been trained by the group in Somalia since 2009. Somali training camps are still conducted in Swahili, the language of Kenya.

A series of terror attacks this year - in the coastal town of Mpeketoni and its surrounds and, last month, the execution of 28 non-Muslim passengers on a bus in northeast Kenya - claimed by al-Shabaab, has devastated tourism, depressed gross domestic product forecasts and unsettled the sometimes breakaway coastal region.

Both investors and local residents worry about a repeat of last year's Westgate mall massacre in Nairobi.

"Kenya is still vulnerable to terrorist attacks and there are certainly people trying to carry them out," says Matt Bryden, a Somalia expert at Sahan Research, a think-tank based in Kenya.

Mr Kenyatta originally blamed his political opposition for the coastal attacks, a move that catapulted the country's already weak security response into crisis. But a few months later, he instead laid the blame at the door of al-Shabaab. The president has replaced some senior officials in charge of security, but many observers would like to see more go.

Kenya's handling of marginalised Muslim communities has made matters worse. Muslim rights groups say community members no longer want to co-operate with police as a result. "The Kenyan government is its own worst enemy," says a senior western diplomat, who accuses the country of "erratic" policing.

Several times this year, security forces have raided radical mosques, resulting in fatal shoot-outs and the arrest, in February, of children as young as nine. A number of muslim clerics have been killed in drive-by shootings, casting suspicion over Kenya's security apparatus despite denials.

Thousands of Somalis have been rounded up in neighbourhood arrest operations and mistreated. Al-Shabaab says its November bus attack was in reprisal for the raids on mosques. Many say that what one diplomat terms the government's "draconian response", combined with corruption in the security forces, is turning vulnerable areas into fertile ground for al-Shabaab recruitment.

Despite such serious missteps, Kenya has registered several successes. Before Westgate, a plan to attack parliament was foiled. Six months later, security forces impounded a vehicle containing what diplomats describe as Africa's largest, most sophisticated car bomb.

The militant group - which operates as a series of cells across east Africa - nearly pulled off an explosives attack in the Uganda capital Kampala in September, but Nairobi has escaped so far.

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"Each time they've tried to assemble an explosive vest and deploy a suicide bomber in Kenya it's been disrupted," says Mr Bryden. "Westgate succeeded because it was low-tech - just Kalashnikovs and grenades."

Al-Shabaab itself is under threat. This year it has lost the last of its coastal strongholds in Somalia and hundreds of fighters, as well as its leader Ahmed Godane, were killed in a September US missile strike.

Kenya is resilient. Investors say outsiders have long priced the security situation into the risk, and the coastal attacks did not stop Kenya from breaking records with its $2bn debut international debt issue that attracted orders for more than four times the amount that Nairobi targeted.

But Ben Woodhams, managing director at Knight Frank, a property agency, says rental price growth has fallen because of the security situation. "If we have another Westgate, we will be in trouble, definitely."

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Devolution: benefits tempered by rising costs

The remote northeastern region of Mandera is among the least developed in Kenya, so the increase in funding that has arrived since county governments began receiving a greater share of national revenues last year has been cause for celebration, writes William Wallis.

For the first time "we feel like part of Kenya", Ali Ibrahim Roba, Mandera's governor, told a rally. His comment reflects the fundamental shift taking place in Kenya's political and administrative landscape as a result of a new constitution since 2010. This devolves greater powers - over sectors such as healthcare, roads and water - to 47 new county governments.

It also begins to reverse the centralisation in Kenyan politics that has favoured more commercially viable and politically influential regions.

A complex system for allocating resources, weighting land mass and population size against poverty levels, now favours the less developed regions.

Thus, Mandera, where an estimated 87 per cent of the population lives in poverty, receives nearly twice as much funding per capita as the capital Nairobi.

Some counties have also begun to impose new charges, beyond those on property and entertainment permitted by the constitution. This is proving a worry for businesses that operate across multiple counties.

Donor officials worry that administrative costs are ballooning - 30 per cent of county spending is supposed to be on development, but only 10 of the 47 counties have managed that, according to a senior World Bank official. Wages are soaking up the bulk of funds.

Supporters of the reforms believe that is a price worth paying to address grievances associated with marginalisation and believe that once the dust has settled, elected politicians will become more accountable.

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