Al-Shabaab terrorists attacked the Republic of Kenya by killing 28 Christians in what has been now dubbed the Mandera Bus Attack. The success of this attack was multi-faceted. It was a psychological weapon and a crime against humanity, freedom, and religion of Kenyan’s.
The attack was given massive coverage by both local and international media. The pictures of the massacred Kenyans circulated across social media. The country was in limbo.
Strategic Intelligence detected the attack and after a critical analysis of the overll objective of the strategy, demystified how Al-Shabaab war strategy planners have perfected the art of Psychological Warfare as a force multiplier and achieves the objective.
According to David James, the Director of Regional Intelligence at Strategic Intelligence, “Terrorism is a preeminent mode of psychological propaganda warfare. Al-Shabaab has succeeded in its psychological war strategy in Kenya.
In the past weeks, the terrorist’s psychological warfare activities were directed against the Government of Kenya with the aim to cause chaos within their ranks, thereby demoralizing and/or disorganizing the government security ranks.
Terrorists seek to psychologically motivate the target audience by exploiting that group’s emotional fear response to threatening stimuli and/or negative stressors.
The president of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta gaffe on security was one indicator that the strike indeed was highly effective. He too was hit by the attack by the terrorists. The citizens and the legislature joined the chorus to have the internal security minister Joe Lenku and Police Inspector General David Mwole Kamaiyo sacked.
Disorganization, civil unrest, and political anger was fuelled. When KDF and Deputy President Ruto told media that the terrorists were killed in a synchronized attack in Somalia and Kenya border area, the terrorists easily rebuffed the claims since the country was psychologically destroyed.
Al-Shabaab propaganda activities are designed to gain possible support for their political objectives, the withdrawal of the Kenya Defense Forces from Somalia. But the truly profound is the fact that KDF is the only reason Al-Shabaab is failing in Somalia.
Opposition in Kenya, the citizens, and the civil society have joined the KDF withdrawal anthem oblivious of the fact they were simply targets and were hit with the desired precision by the weapon.
Psychological warfare is often tied with the use of propaganda hence the terrorist seeks to gain the attention of their target through fear and intimidation but simultaneously hope to build understanding through the paired use of impressionistic propaganda.
According to David James, the mindset of the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization is that its leadership clearly know that they can’t win through terrorist attacks rather have to orchestrate spectacular attacks to achieve the enlisting help of the victims themselves, in this Kenyans.
Thus “a victory that would be impossible by military means is thus brought within reach through a protracted, gnawing campaign of psychological warfare – a war of attrition that gradually erodes the target population’s will to fight and turns the tables against the government of Kenya”.
Counter-terrorism strategies must be more aggressive to reduce the effect.
