IN THE more than four years that Kenyan soldiers have been in Somalia to fight the Shabab, al-Qaeda’s east African branch, terrorist attacks back home have escalated. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Kenya, where jihadists continue to pose a potent threat. Defeating insurgencies is no easy task for sophisticated military alliances such as NATO, let alone less well-resourced ones. Even so, Kenya’s army has made slow progress, not least in cutting off the Shabab’s sources of funding. And one reason for this, says a new report, is that the Kenyan military has an economic interest in the same smuggling networks that also channel funding to the Shabab.
Somalia has little going for it economically so its jihadists have turned to unlikely ways of raising cash. One is by taxing the production and export of charcoal to the Gulf, where it is used in shisha pipes. A less well-known source of revenue comes from a sugar-smuggling racket worth as much as $400 million a year.
Much of this two-way trade—charcoal going out and sugar coming in—takes place through Kismayo’s sickle-shaped harbour in southern Somalia. The port was...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1Iaail0
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