Written by Gabe Joselow | From Voice of America

Fighters from the militant group al-Shabab, driven from their strongholds across Somalia, have claimed responsibility for gruesome attacks targeting non-Muslims in northeastern Kenya: hijacking a bus full of passengers in one recent incident, and attacking quarry workers as they slept in their tents in another.

Billow Kerrow is a senator from Mandera County in Kenya on the border with Somalia, the country where both attacks took place.

“So we have a situation where most of the al-Shabab forces seem to be largely in control of the area bordering Mandera – this Gedo region – so we have a situation where we have large numbers of people there and we don’t have a border that is really properly secured.”

Success story

Kerrow has noticed that Kenya’s neighbor to the north, Ethiopia, has had much more success preventing terrorism on its own soil, despite having a much longer border with Somalia, and a longer history of military involvement in the country. And he thinks Kenya should look to Ethiopia as a model.

“What I know is on most of its border they have created a buffer, almost 50 to 100 kilometers, and any activity by these groups in that region will be met by an incursion directly that will immediately eliminate the threat,” Kerrow said.

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