Intelligence analysts in Kenya report Kenya’s Government would have been brought to its knees if Al-Shabaab terrorists conducted the Lamu attack.
Kenya’s Intelligence, Defense and Internal Security heads robustly worked overnight to ensure all security stations were alert to avert the disaster.
Al Shabaab had identified the Mpeketoni Memorial as the ideal time for the attack. They had also identified daybreak as the ideal time for the attack.
Event Objective Analysis
These two aspects (the memorial and the daybreak time) were the facade of the attack which was effectively preempted by Kenya Defense Forces.
Al Shabaab had 3 groups of attackers. The attack was supposed to be synchronized and well coordinated.
The first group was the scouts group, composed of 10 local youths mainly from Lamu and Malindi who provided intelligence on the security situation in the targeted areas such as churches and villages. The objective of this team was to ensure police formations in the target areas would be compromised by a multi-pronged attack.
The second group, composed of 20 heavily armed attackers had been tasked with flushing out villagers from their houses and lead them to the forests, pillage the villages, steal medicine and food, and film the event.
The third team which was a large militant group almost the size of an army brigade was tasked with ambushing, capturing, and burning down the Buare-Kiunga Military Camp in Lamu. It was heavily armed and had the Al-Kattaib media crew tasked with filming the event for purpose of publishing propaganda videos. This group was also tasked with shooting dead villagers who had taken refuge in the forests.
The terrorists targeted over 600 vulnerable Christian farmers in Mpeketoni Lamu. They also wanted to kill as many army officers at the military camp. They’d have filmed these events including cutting throats of the soldiers, planting their black flag at the military camp.
They also would have burnt the villages and slaughtered the villagers inside the forests and lineup the bodies of the dead along the soldiers and the police officers. The outcome of such a bloody orgy would have had catastrophic social-political ramifications on the government of Kenya.
“The government of Kenya could have lost. The possibility of the government resigning was very possible if the event succeeded. One, if the army is killed and their camp destroyed, its indicative of defenselessness. The killing of hundreds of civilians after the killing of the army officers would show how Al Shabaab was taking over the NEP. The government must be very proud of the Intelligence Service and the Kenya Defense Forces for such a preemptive strike on the terrorists” Explains David Goldman, a lead analysts at SIS.
They wanted to film the event during daybreak so that the pictures could be very clear. They also wanted to ensure the media was already running so that the effect of the acts would be amplified effectively. However, they got stunned. The so-well laid plan was already intercepted and decoded by the Intelligence Services and the Army. Al Shabaab suffered their greatest lost on this day. It is highly unlikely, they’ll ever recover from such embarrassment any sooner.
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