24 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Kenya
Tags
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose nephew and his fiancé were among the victims, maintained a policy that Israel introduced to the world in the Entebbe raid and then abandoned in recent years – no negotiations with terrorists. “We will not negotiate with terrorists,” said Colonel Cyrus Oguna, a Kenyan military spokesman.
The Jewish Press » » Kenya, Unlike Israel, ‘Does not Negotiate with Terrorists’ (Video) 9/23/2013
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The doors will close.
The noose will tighten.
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23 Monday Sep 2013
Such extreme violence against minorities tends to be perpetrated by the country’s many and various militant organisations. The group that claimed responsibility for this latest attack has links to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and said it was acting in retaliation for drone strikes. Yet the problem runs far deeper than a few rogue elements. Disturbingly, these extremist groups, which have been allowed to operate by successive governments, do have an impact on the national debate. This has contributed to increasing intolerance across society.
In south central Pennsylvania this afternoon, the news on the television mounted in a corner beneath the ceiling of the diner where I was enjoying a late lunch hung on the tragedy playing out in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. This other story involving a death toll greater than Westgate — 85 as opposed to 68 — and targeting a Christian community and its sacred space may have had a different presence, less visceral, less important for having taken place in Muslim-majority Pakistan and having involved a less affluent and cosmopolitan community.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps we are more used to hearing of Islamist outrages in Pakistan — something in the realm of Islamic arm twisting and terror happens every day or every other day in Pakistan’s part of the Islamic Small Wars — and then, again, it’s a Muslim state and one with an outlook very different from Christian Kenya’s with its historic and decent relationship with Israel.
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Their 52-year-old father had been looking forward to it, particularly the period after the service when the congregation spills out into the enclosed courtyard to chat.
“He was looking forward to seeing his friends,” said Joel.
It’s convenient, I suppose, for this old bleeding heart to bleed for everyone at the desktop: in my pseudo-solopsist online existence, all of the Islamic Small Wars (and a few others) occupy the same space, about 24-inches from eyes to screen. In real space, are they not on just one planet? Are they not coinciding, if not colliding, in time?
Is there anything that would make the murder of a 52-year-old father returning to church in Peshawar any less horrific and tragic than that of his doppelgänger gone shopping for a few hours in a mall in Nairobi?
Perhaps Pakistanis who now must admit the state’s declared religion has been hewed to, commandeered, perverted, or merely exploited (choose any option) by those “who would fly planes into office building” or blow up wedding processions, funerals, or parishioners gathering after services at church should lend attention to the more harmonious and tolerant values of the west and of the Christians. And of the Jews. And, perhaps, infidel others ever so much more at peace with the wide, wide world and themselves.
Until provoked.
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▶ Dr Qanta Ahmed – Israel TV’s Foreign News Magazine – Roim Olam – YouTube 9/23/2013
Kenya Westgate mall hostage standoff continues; death toll hits 68 – CBS News 9/22/2013
Why Israel is advising Kenya in mall attack response – CSMonitor.com 9/23/2013:
Israeli interests in Kenya run deep. According to the website of Israel’s embassy in Nairobi, Israel has provided technical assistance in areas such as agriculture and medicine for decades, in some cases going back to the days before Kenyan independence in 1963.
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23 Monday Sep 2013
Tags
Al Shabaab, exceeding limits, Islamic Small Wars, Kenya, news, overview, terror, terrorism, victims, Westgate Mall
Mr Langdon, 33, and Ms Yavuz, a Harvard PhD who worked to help battle malarial disease on the continent, travelled from Uganda to Nairobi, because they believed there was “no safer place” in Africa to have their baby, which was due in weeks.
It was a simple decision that unwittingly intertwined their fates with those of hundreds of innocent people in a mall where days of gunfire and lobbed grenades would leave 69 people dead.
Somali extremists extinguish two lives dedicated to Africa’s poor | The Australian 9/24/2013
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BBC News – Nairobi Westgate attack: Victims are ‘unarmed innocent citizens’ – YouTube 9/23/2013
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The Shabaab fighters were warning Muslims to leave and questioned people about their faith. Muslims were separated from non-Muslims; the non-Muslims were executed. Some Shabaab fighters were heard yelling “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Greatest,” as they gunned down innocent civilians.
Shabaab suicide teams target civilians in assault on Kenyan mall – The Long War Journal 9/21/2013
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The terror attack on a Kenyan shopping centre that has left 68 dead was being led by the white English widow of a 7/7 bomber, it was claimed last night.
Soldiers said a white woman wearing a veil was shouting orders to gunmen in Arabic during the bloody massacre inside the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.
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“We knew the shopping center is owned by Israelis and renowned as a place where many Israelis hang out,” Lopez told Maariv. “Four of the restaurants there are also owned by Israelis and many Israelis are employed in the place. They were our main concern—but we also support our Kenyan friends and ready to assist in whichever way they ask.”
The Jewish Press » » 3 Israelis Escape as Nairobi Shopping Center Attack Continues 9/22/2013
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During the attack, Al Shabaab’s Arabic Twitter account quoted the Koran, “Plant firmly our feet and give us victory over (Al-Kafireen) the disbelieving people.” (Koran 2:250). The Kuffar, the non-Muslims of Westgate, included small children.
In the Name of Islam | FrontPage Magazine 9/23/2013
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When I posted on this event yesterday, the death toll was 59.
Kenya Westgate mall hostage standoff continues; death toll hits 68 – CBS News 9/22/2013
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NAIROBI, Kenya–I will travel to Ghana to be present at the burial of Kofi Awoonor. I will because he is a great Ghanaian poet. I will because he is a remarkable African thinker and mentor. I will because he traveled to Jamaica from Ghana to bury my father, his dear friend and mentor, in 1984. I will because he is my uncle, my mother’s cousin.
Poet Kofi Awoonor Killed In Terrorist Attack at Nairobi Mall – Speakeasy – WSJ 9/22/2013
Related: Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor among Westgate mall victims | World news | theguardian.com 9/23/2013
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Dang works for the restaurant guide “Eat Out Kenya” and was meeting coworkers at Nairobi’s upscale Westgate Mall when gunfire broke out Saturday. Terrorists with ties to al-Qaida unloaded a flood of gunfire and grenades into crowds of unsuspecting shoppers. Those who were not hit dodged bullets and crawled to safety.
NBC 7 (San Diego Woman Among Victims Injured in Kenya Mall Attack | NBC 7 San Diego 9/22/2013 ) reported that Dang, a native of San Diego, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, who is recovering from her injuries, had also worked for the New Leaders Council, Teach for America, and “taught high school students on a Native American reservation in New Mexico.”
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▶ BBC News – Nairobi Westgate attack: Who are the al-Shabab militants? – YouTube
Kenyan forces have located militants in shopping mall, says president | World news | theguardian.com 9/22/2013
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