Terrorism bred in Eastleigh

The People  October 27, 2013

The seeds of the terrorist attacks that have caused hundreds of deaths, immeasurable pain of injury and property loss in Kenya were planted long ago in the country, experts say. They are warning that Kenya remains very vulnerable since little has been done to cut down ‘terrorism’ from its roots. An Imam who asked not to be quoted for security reasons told The People that the biggest threat to Kenya’s security has been obvious to both muslims and security system but corruption and the money in the terror network have put paid efforts to eradicate it. “Go to eastleigh and look at the mosques. Also look at the Madrassas (places of Quran instruction) for young people and new converts.

If you are keen you will see that the ground for the terror attacks that we are experiencing today have been in preparation for a long time,” said the Imam. It is this tip that led to an expedi- tion into Eastleigh. Yet establishing our facts was not an easy task. For, although with its thriving business Eastleigh looks like an open soci- ety, Eastleigh is almost impenetra- ble.
The beehive of activities, the high rise apartments blocks, ho- tels, and shopping malls that spring up in quick succession are like a veil that keeps its secrets deep in its heart. What we found in our expedition and the explanations we got from Muslims was shocking and worrying at the same time.
One of the outstanding things in Eastleigh is the unique de- sign of the Mosques in the estate. Apart from three, the rest are built in a simple style. They do not have minarets as found in older mosques nor do they have big dome. In most of the Madrassas we vis- ited, the unique thing we found was that the instructors were rela- tively young. Most studied religion in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. We were told this new breed of instructors are very active that when not in madrassas, they turned to public preaching in the streets of Eastleigh. But it is the explanation of our ob- servations that was surprising. Ac- cording to a source within Muslim leadership in Kenya, what we had seen was the evidence of the grow- ing influence of a vicious sect that is at war with everybody: Chris- tians, Muslims, and atheists alike.
“The people are the ones respon- sible for the terror attacks that have rocked Kenya since the 1990s. They are not Muslims, and every ortho- dox muslims knows that they are called Wahhabis. We are trying very hard to expose them because they are a danger to everyone,” said our source. Sources told us the Wahhabis have laid a long term strategy to take control of the country in the same way they have in Somalia. Their strategy involves to recruit- ing as many people as they can into their brand of Islam. In the current scheme of things, they have been exploiting the weaknesses in the government to bringing as many Somalis who subscribe to the sect into the coun- try. “Through corruption, many So- malis who subscribe to this sect have acquired Kenyan identity documents including passports and Ids.
The moneyed Wahhabis have procured the services of top lawyers in the country and have used them to acquire property in Nairobi, Kajiado and other towns, either by corrupting land officials to issue them with Title Deeds for land owned by Kenyans or cheat- ing Kenyans out of their land,” our source told us. The strategy also involves inte- grating and hiding among Kenyans by perfecting their knowledge and fluency in Kenyan languages. “If you go to Eastleigh you will find institutions disguised as ter- tiary colleges. Try and find out what they teach and you will be shocked. The names they use are intended to give them legal legiti- macy so they can carry out their plans,” said another source. In our expedition, we came across many of these colleges. Most have “institute of management” or “business studies” as part of their business names. But on a closer scrutiny, they teach English and Swahili to peo- ple who are beyond school going age.
The reason for this we were told is so that they can learn Kenyan way of speaking, including our idioms so that it becomes near im- possible to distinguish the locals from immigrants. “In the next five years, there will be a lot of attention on East Africa because of the huge oil discoveries. What this means is that the domination of oil power could easily shift from the Gulf region to East Africa. This is not a position that the Wahhabis want to see because it challenges the economic power of the Saudi Monarch, the benefac- tor of the sect,”an Imam told us. But who are these Wahhabis? The Wahhabis call themselves the true muslims are label other muslims as unbelievers and in- fidels. Their fight against other muslims is very vicious and as the recent example in Syria has shown, they have qualms sawing off heads of other Muslims.
In the ongoing Syrian conflict, members of the sect burnt down a mosque in Damascus and in one of the videos posted on Youtube, members of the sect are seen pro- claiming god is great as one of them slaughters a shia Muslim like a goat. they have also been responsible for destruction of islam holy sites across the world. With the sup- port of the saudi royalty, the sect destroyed the houses that the fam- ily of Prophet Muhammad, the founder of islam and his family used to live in Mecca and Medina. it is somali clerics who sub- scribed to this sect were behind the formation of islamic Courts Union in somalia, the precursor of al shabbab.
When their leadership col- lapsed, the clerics disintegrated into small caliphates spread all over somalia. some of the clerics also sneaked into Kenya as refugees and have been propagating their sect’s dogma where ever they land. according to the sources we spoke to, the Wahhabis sect has a stranglehold on Eastleigh where it followed somali refugees from somalia. their clerics preach in the many mosques preaching Jihadist ide- ology while the rich among the members (whose business ven- tures are financed largely with oil money from saudi arabia and other gulf region states) support the clerics financially.
With young and fiery clerics trained in either saudi arabia and Qatar, the sect has spread from the suburb, with funding from the two governments, to the other low in- come estates in Nairobi and other urban centres. in Nairobi, the sects has also grown roots in Majengo, south B and south C. its influence has also spread to Kayole and Zimmerman. loaded with promises of wealth and other opportunities in arabia, they easily capture the imagina- tions of young people from poor backgrounds who they indoctri- nate on the sacred duty of physi- cally fighting and destroying those they consider unbelievers.