Post by wanyee on Sept 25, 2013 0:35:53 GMT 3
First and foremost, Islam does not sanction such barbarism.
Second, al-Shabaab claims allegiance to Al-Qaeda, which has been a CIA front for decades, and plays multiple roles as boogeymen as well as “freedom fighters”, on behalf of US policy.
Pursuant to this, here is a grain of salt:
"The Same Terrorists the US is Arming in Syria are Killing Civilians in Kenya" (Read more below)
Kenyan Bloodbath: Reaping the “Benefits” of US AFRICOM Collaboration
NATO's North African terror tidal wave predictably sweeps into Kenya.
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, September 23, 2013
Land Destroyer
At face value, and how the Western media is attempting to portray it, the Westgate Mall siege in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi appears to be yet another senseless terrorist attack by the “religious fanatics” of Al Qaeda’s Somalia franchise, Al Shabaab. Already, both Kenyan and Western politicians, as well as editorials across the Western media, are attempting to use the attack as a pretext to launch a military campaign against neighboring Somalia, while fueling anti-Muslim sentiment across profoundly ignorant audiences in the West. A telling op-ed in USA Today titled, “Nairobi mall attack strikes against all of us: Column” states in its subtitle that:
As on 9/11, terrorists are waging a war on our modern, democratic way of life. Today, we are all Kenyans.
The op-ed continues by stating:
Just as important: The fight is not just a Kenyan, or African, fight. Somalia could be the new Afghanistan. A lawless, fundamentalist Somalia could incubate a Somali Osama bin Laden and new attacks on the USA, just as Afghanistan protected and nurtured bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
And:
After the Nairobi attack, the message should be “We Are All Kenyans.” Not just in our sympathy. But also in going all out to prevent another terrorist attack.
Leaving Somalia to al-Shabab is not an option.
Kenya: Proxy for US Aggression in Africa
What the USA Today op-ed fails to mention, even as it alludes to impending military intervention in Somalia, is that Kenya has already participated in military operations against its northern neighbor, including a full-scale military invasion complete with US and French military support in 2011. In the UK Independent’s October 2011 article, “Somali invasion backed by West, says Kenya,” it was reported that:
Kenya has confirmed that Western allies have joined its war on Islamic militants al-Shabaab despite denials from the US and France that they are involved in fighting in southern Somalia. Foreign military forces have carried out air strikes and a naval bombardment close to the militant stronghold of Kismayo, a Kenyan army spokesman said yesterday.
“There are certainly other actors in this theatre carrying out other attacks,” said Kenya’s Major Emmanuel Chirchir.
The Kenyan invasion has already caused a major rift between Somalia’s interim prime minister and president, who yesterday condemned the presence of foreign troops inside his country.
While the US attempted to deny any role in the invasion, it has admittedly carried out periodic airstrikes and drone strikes across Somalia, as reported by the BBC’s 2012 article, “Somalia air strike ‘kills foreign al-Shabab militants’:“
The US military, which has a base in neighbouring Djibouti, has previously carried out drone strikes in Somalia.
It has also launched air strikes against alleged al-Qaeda militants in the country.
Before using Kenya as a proxy for US aggression in Africa, and amidst two decades of unilateral, covert military operations, the US had backed two Ethiopian invasions into Somalia. The first US-backed invasion, under then US President George Bush, was carried out in 2006. USA Today reported in its 2007 article, “U.S. support key to Ethiopia’s invasion,” that:
The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.
The second US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, under US President Barack Obama, was carried out in 2011 – coordinated with Kenya’s 2011 US-French-backed extraterritorial adventure into Somali territory. The UK Independent’s December 2011 article, “UN-backed invasion of Somalia spirals into chaos,” reported that:
Kenya’s invasion of Somalia, hailed by the West and the UN Security Council, was meant to deliver a knockout blow to the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab. Instead it has pulled Somalia’s regional rival Ethiopia back into the country, stirred up the warlords and rekindled popular support for fundamentalists whose willingness to let Somalis starve rather than receive foreign aid had left them widely hated.
It was in fact this US-backed military invasion that served as the alleged motivation of the Al Shabaab terrorists who attacked Kenya’s Westgate Mall this week.
The Same Terrorists the US is Arming in Syria are Killing Civilians in Kenya
Beginning in 2011, geopolitical analysts warned that US, British and French intervention in Libya would create a terror emirate that would unleash a tidal wave of militant destabilization across Northern Africa and beyond. From Mali to Kenya, and as far as Syria, violence directly linked to the militants and the aid and weapons they received from the West in Libya, have now been felt.
[Image: (click image to enlarge) Truly NATO’s intervention in Libya has been a resounding success. Not only has the West managed to revive the terrorist LIFG organization Qaddafi had been fighting successfully for decades, but now “international institutions” have a casus belli spreading across the whole of North Africa, into the Middle East and beyond as NATO weapons and Western cash enable LIFG fighters to battle as far as Syria in the east and Mali to the west. The wave of terror unleashed and the predictable “pretexts” it will provide, has now swept into Kenya.]
Shortly after NATO’s intervention in Libya, it was Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a US State Department listed terror organization (listed #38), that played a central role in the invasion of northern Mali, which provided the pretext for French military intervention and occupation. AQIM of course, was merged with Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), the ground troops used in NATO’s regime change operation in Libya starting in 2011. In a 2007 West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) report and a 2011 CTC report, “Are Islamist Extremists Fighting Among Libya’s Rebels?,” AQIM is specifically mentioned as working closely with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The latter report admits:
There have also been reports during the past few years of a handful of Libyans who have traveled to Algeria to train with al-Qa`ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), although these reports are unconfirmed. AQIM has sought to capitalize on the situation in Libya
Geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar would elaborate in an Asia Times piece titled, “How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli,” that:
“Crucially, still in 2007, then al-Qaeda’s number two, Zawahiri, officially announced the merger between the LIFG and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM). So, for all practical purposes, since then, LIFG/AQIM have been one and the same – and Belhaj was/is its emir. “
“Belhaj,” referring to Hakim Abdul Belhaj, leader of LIFG in Libya, led with NATO support, arms, funding, and diplomatic recognition, the overthrowing of Muammar Qaddafi and has now plunged the nation into racist genocidal infighting. This intervention has also seen the rebellion’s epicenter of Benghazi peeling off from Tripolias a semi-autonomous “Terror-Emirate.” Belhaj’s latest campaign has shifted to Syria where he was admittedly on the Turkish-Syrian border pledging weapons, money, and fighters to the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” again, under the auspices of NATO support.
The torrent of militants and weapons flowing from Libya into Syria to support Western-backed regime change against the Syrian government has been extensively documented over the last 2+ years.
In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:
Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”
Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit
Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and as recently as last month, CNN, whose Ivan Watson accompanied terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo, revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants, particularly Libyans. It was admitted that:
Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks. A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.
CNN also added:
On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.
The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.
CNN’s reports provide bookends to 2011′s admissions that large numbers of Libyan terrorists flush with NATO cash and weapons had headed to Syria, with notorious terrorist LIFG commanders making the arrangements.
Al Shabaab – Al Qaeda’s Somali franchise – is also directly linked to AQIM and the myriad of other Al Qaeda extremist subsidiaries, including Libya’s LIFG, and the more recently christened Al Nusra front in Syria. The BBC in its 2012 report titled, “Africa’s Islamist militants ‘co-ordinate efforts’,” stated:
Three of Africa’s largest militant Islamist groups are trying to co-ordinate their efforts, the head of the US Africa Command has warned.
Gen Carter Ham said in particular North African al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was probably sharing explosives and funds with Nigeria’s Boko Haram.
Speaking in Washington, he said the separatist movement in northern Mali had provided AQIM with a “safe haven”.
Somalia’s al-Shabab was the other “most dangerous” group, he said.
This cooperation between AQIM, Boko Haram, and Al Shabaab has been clearly bolstered by the immense influx of NATO-provided cash and weapons flowing into Libya first to overthrow the Libyan government, then to be shipped to Syria to overthrow the government there. NATO’s assistance in expanding Al Qaeda’s operational capacity in North Africa can only be helping terrorists like those behind the Kenya Westgate Mall siege carry out cross-border operations of this scale.
Despite attempts by the West to provide other explanations as to where Al Qaeda is receiving its funds, manpower, and arsenal to carry out global campaigns, it is clear that it is a product of state-sponsorship – states like the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, and others.
Indeed, Al Shabaab’s attack in Kenya is abhorrent, unjustifiable terrorism – however, what Kenyans and the world as a whole must remember, is who armed them, who continuously props them up, provides them entire nations (Libya) as safe havens, and swells their ranks and armories with billions in cash and thousands of tons of weaponry at a time in war zones like Syria.
Al Shabaab’s continued existence, along with its counterparts AQIM across Northern Africa, LIFG in Libya, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Al Nusra in Syria, is due entirely to both covert and overt Western military and financial backing. The blood of Kenya’s innocent are on the hands of those within the Kenyan government willfully serving as a proxy for US aggression across Africa, and those across the West using Al Qaeda as a geopolitical tool to achieve their global objectives.
Al Qaeda: The Perfect Pretext to Invade, The Perfect Mercenary Army to Covertly Wage War
Al Qaeda, for the West, serves as the ultimate geopolitical tool. It can be used as a pretext to invade, as well as a nearly inexhaustible mercenary army to carry out ruthless terrorist campaigns and even full-scale war as seen in Syria and Libya, to achieve Western objectives. Additionally, the omnipresent, nebulous nature of Al Qaeda serves as justification to strip away the rights and liberties of people at home, across Western civilization – perpetuating a climate of fear within which the seeds of very profitable war can be sown and continuously reaped.How profitable? A Harvard’s Kennedy School research paper titled, “The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan,” places the total expenditures of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars alone somewhere between 4-6 trillion dollars. That isn’t 4-6 trillion dollars that went into a black hole. That is 4-6 trillion dollars that went to the Fortune 500 corporations that engineered and sold these conflicts to the American public in the first place.
The Washington Post in its recent article, “Americans are tweeting about ‘Syria’ almost as much as ‘twerking’ – sometimes more,” celebrated the general public’s ignorance regarding geopolitics. It stated:
The fact that more people are discuss twerking than Syria is not necessarily bad news. They share, as Floating Sheep notes, “little in common apart from recent media attention”: One is a pop culture phenomenon (both more fun and more accessible to a wider swath of the population) and one is a tragic, complicated news event halfway around the world (critically important, but not very fun — particularly on a platform many use for recreation).
It continued by claiming:
Of course, even if you polled all 300 million Americans on their relative interest in twerking and Syria, twerking would probably win — and that’s okay, too. There are many justifiable reasons why an individual or a population wouldn’t care about foreign news — things like a lack of education and limited access to computers or newspapers.
It is this “ lack of education” that the Washington Post’s editorial board and the special interests that steer it, claim is “okay too,” that allows these special interests to continue to use Al Qaeda both as the ultimate villain and to swell the ranks of its inexhaustible global “freedom fighters.”
The aforementioned USA Today editorial seeking to exploit the latest tragedy in Kenya also warned:
The Nairobi shopping mall attack is heartbreaking. The stories could so easily be American stories.
For the real interests driving and solely benefiting from Al Qaeda’s campaign of global terror, should they decide these stories need to be “American,” they will be, unless we rectify the “lack of education” these special interests have carefully cultivated and reassuringly claim is “okay.”
SOURCE: www.globalresearch.ca/kenyan-bloodbath-reaping-the-benefits-of-us-africom-collaboration/5351037
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See also:
Kenyan False Flag Bomb Plot Aimed At Tightening Sanctions Noose On Iran
Islamic Republic Falls Foul in African Cradle of America’s ‘War on Terror’
By Finian Cunningham
Global Research, July 06, 2012
6 July 2012
An alleged spectacular Iranian bomb plot uncovered in Kenya this week has all the hallmarks of a Western intelligence “false flag” operation – with the aim of tightening international oil sanctions even further on Iran.
Two men alleged to be Iranian nationals and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appeared in court in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, earlier this week on terrorism charges. Media reports on 2 July said the men are accused of planning to blow up American, British, Saudi and Israeli targets in Kenya, including the British High Commission office, a chain of hotels and a synagogue.
Then, two days later, on 4 July, the Kenyan government made a surprise announcement that it was cancelling a fresh oil deal that it had signed with Iran. The purchase agreement had been struck with the Islamic Republic only a few weeks ago. The deal would have involved the supply of 80,000 barrels per day (b/d) of Iranian crude to the East African country.
Kenya is East Africa’s largest economy and the new partnership was seen as a welcome opportunity by Iran to open up other African oil export markets in the wake of tough American and European sanctions that came into effect on 28 June and 1 July, respectively. The 27-member EU bloc was a mainstay of Iranian oil exports, representing about 500,000 b/d, or 20 per cent of Iran’s global total.
While the Kenyan deal in itself would have only gone a small way towards compensating for the loss of the EU market, nevertheless it held the promise of a wider regional destination for further Iranian exports. There were reports of similar transactions in the pipeline with Tanzania and Zimbabwe among others.
Only a day before the Kenyan cancellation, the director of the National Iranian Oil Company, Mohsen Ghamsari, spoke to Iranian media in an upbeat tone about the Kenyan contract and how this signified new export markets in Africa circumventing the loss of European markets.
“Under the current conditions, despite the oil exports’ halt to Europe, new contracts with other customer countries have been signed,” said Ghamsari. “One of the new markets for exports of Iran’s oil is that of the African countries,” he added, confirming that Kenya was one of them. “Soon, more details about new Iran oil export contracts to new countries will be announced.”
That promising African development for Iran now seems to have foundered, adding to an already bleak outlook for Iran’s economy following the closure of European oil markets and, even worse, cancellations by major Asian buyers. Some 60 per cent of Iran’s crude exports had until recently been destined for Asia, including China, India, Japan and South Korea. But, despite earlier defiant talk, these buyers have recently balked at Iranian orders so as to avoid American and European financial penalties against banks and shipping insurance companies dealing with Iran.
The upshot is that Iranian oil exports have crashed from 2.5 million b/d last year to about 1.5 million b/d currently – a drop of 40 per cent, representing a loss of $3 billion every month to the Iranian economy. Over the year, that translates into a 10 per cent contraction in Iran’s oil-based national economy, according to World Bank data. This, in turn, is having a drastic impact on social conditions in Iran, with the purchasing power of the currency, the rial, plummeting, and inflation and unemployment spiralling.
Kenya’s oil ministry claims that revoking the Iranian contract was not related to the alleged bomb plot. The ministry says it was merely complying with American warnings of sanctions’ penalties being enforced if it went ahead with the oil deal.
But it seems likely that the suspected terror attacks – reported widely in lurid detail – may have been aimed at making the abrupt scuppering of the Iranian oil purchase more politically acceptable, not just in Kenya, but elsewhere in Africa. Local and international media reports immediately connected the Kenyan bomb scare with other alleged Iranian terror plots over the past year, including the plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington DC, and a string of explosions in Thailand, India, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Iran has strenuously denied any sinister involvement in Kenya or the other countries mentioned. No evidence has been produced to substantiate the high-flown accusations made against Iran, yet Western mainstream media continue to run with such claims months after the alleged incidents have faded into oblivion.
As if on cue, as soon as the news broke about the latest bomb plot in Kenya, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, accused the Iranian government of “a terrorist attack in Africa”.
Netanyahu asserted: “After Iran sent its agents to murder the Saudi ambassador on US soil, the country has engaged in attacks in Azerbaijan, Bangkok, in Tbilisi, in New Delhi, and now we have just discovered a plot for a terrorist attack in Africa. Iranian terrorism knows no borders. The international community must fight against this major player in the world of terrorism.”
Apart from Netanyahu’s scripted, ready response to a breaking news story, there are other aspects about the alleged Kenyan bomb plot that indicate there is far more to it than meets the eye.
The two suspects, named as Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi, are widely reported to belong to the crack Al Quds division of Iran’s revolutionary guards. But their appearance in the Nairobi court showed men who were well over middle age, with slightly disheveled figures, lacking the killer, athletic physiques that one would expect of elite commandos.
Secondly, it was reported that as soon as the men were arrested on 19 June, they voluntarily led police to a warehouse in the coastal city of Mombasa to recover 15 kilos of RDX plastic explosive. That readiness to cooperate with police in locating explosives does not sound like the behaviour of highly trained, elite commandos.
Thirdly, when the men appeared in court this week they denied the charges of a terror conspiracy. That contradicts the above claim that the suspects led police to their bomb store.
Fourthly, Kenyan police were reported in local and international media saying that they believed the alleged terror duo were planning to use 15 kilos of explosive to attack up to 30 high-profile targets.
Now, while RDX (a component of Semtex) is a powerful explosive, a blitz on 30 targets with a total cache of 15 kilos would appear to spread the demolition material a bit thin (0.5 kilo per hit), which seems an unlikely bomb ration if one was indeed planning to carry out terror attacks on embassies, government buildings, hotels, a city centre shopping mall, and a synagogue.
A fifth anomaly in the official story is the allegation that all this synchronized destruction and mayhem was to be carried out by only two men. Given the necessary logistics, surveillance, transport, not to mention the time required to execute such a complex plot, the huge task would be physically impossible for two individuals to pull off – even if they were top-notch Iranian commandos, which the two hapless suspects are clearly not.
One further question mark over the latest supposed Iranian terror plot in Kenya is the shadowy involvement of Western and Israeli intelligence in the former British colony. For several months now the US embassy has been issuing unspecified terror warnings to the public. On 23 April, a Kenya news agency reported: “An advisory from the [US] embassy said the timing of the attacks was unclear, but intelligence information showed the planning was in the final stages.” In a statement, the US embassy said then: “The embassy informs US citizens residing in or visiting Kenya that the US embassy in Nairobi has received credible information regarding a possible attack on Nairobi hotels and prominent Kenyan government buildings.”
Since Kenyan troops invaded neighbouring Somalia at the end of 2011, there have been a series of grenade attacks in Nairobi that have claimed over 10 lives. It is not clear who is behind the attacks. The Somali insurgent group, Al Shehab, which is said to have links to Al Qaeda, has been blamed by Kenyan police, but the group has denied involvement. While the grenade incidents have proven deadly, there is a distinct sense that the US embassy terror warnings were hinting at a more high-profile event.
Moreover, when the alleged Iranian bombers appeared in court, they claimed that they were interrogated and tortured by Israeli agents upon their arrest. The Israeli embassy declined to comment to media on these claims. But if they are true, that suggests a highly irregular policing matter. Why should Israeli agents be involved immediately in a criminal matter of a sovereign jurisdiction?
A deeper look into the historic role of Kenya in the American-led “war on terror” raises even more disquieting questions that cast doubt on the latest Iranian bomb plot claim.
For a start, Kenya is a key ally of Western intelligence in East Africa. It is believed to serve as a clandestine base for American aerial drone attacks in Somalia, which intensified over the past year, with reports of dozens of deaths, many of them civilians, in the southern Somali region around the rebel-held port city of Kismayu.
Kenya is also a node in the international rendition network run by the US, Britain and Israel. Young men from Somalia and other countries in the region who are suspected of Islamic Jihadi activities or sympathies are rendered to black sites in Kenya, where they are interrogated and tortured before being transferred to other such sites in Afghanistan. Human rights investigator Clara Gutteridge told the US-based Nation magazine in excruciating detail how one young Somali man was captured in Mogadishu in 2003 by a Somali warlord and handed over to American officials, who had him rendered via Kenya and Djibouti to Afghanistan for five years of detention and torture before he was released from Bagram Air Force Base without charge.
The Kenyan authorities have therefore a history of close collaboration with Western intelligence agencies, and this collaboration dates back to before 9/11 and the “war on terror”. Indeed, a case can be made that Kenya served as a crucial incubator for the American conception of fighting a global war against Islamic terrorists.
In 1998, three years before 9/11, one of the most deadly assaults against US personnel and sovereignty was carried out ostensibly by the newly formed Al Qaeda terror network led by Osama bin Laden. On 7 August 1998, a truck bomb carrying 1,000 kilos of explosive was driven into the US embassy in Nairobi. The lethal force demolished the building and killed 219 people, 12 of them American citizens, and injured more than 4,000. Minutes later, in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of neighbouring Tanzania, a second truck bomb exploded at the US embassy there, killing 11 and injuring 85.
The twin attacks put Al Qaeda and its leader on the global map as America’s enemy number one. This was the genesis of the “war on terror” in which, supposedly, the former American mujahideen proxy army that had defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was transformed from dutiful ally to mortal enemy. The rationale for the switch was said to be the arrival of US troops in Saudi Arabia – the home of the holy Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina – which began in August 1990 in the build-up to the Gulf War against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein over his invasion of Kuwait.
During the 1990s, Bin Laden’s newly formed Al Qaeda (“the base”) was reported to be expanding out of Afghanistan and setting up in Sudan, Kenya and Somalia. Recall that this was at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse and with its demise the entire rationale of the America’s global military doctrine and spending was in danger of vanishing. During this period, Al Qaeda came to fill the void left by the collapsing Soviet Union as the new enemy for which the Pentagon’s trillion-dollar budget would have to be maintained, rather than it being furnished as a “peace dividend” for the good of American civic society.
The problem for US planners was making the nebulous Al Qaeda a credible threat to the American and world public. The devastating attacks on the US embassy in Kenya and Tanzania would provide such a crystallizing demonstration. But, as with the later, more spectacular 9/11 terror in New York, the bombings of the embassies were not masterminded by Al Qaeda Jihadis, but rather by American military intelligence. The horrific terrorist carnage would serve to mobilize the American public behind a new war agenda, no longer the one against the “evil Soviet empire”, but now against “Islamic extremists” hellbent on destroying American values and the American way of life.
American author and commentator Ralph Schoenman has been researching the 1998 US embassy bombings from that date. Schoenman is convinced that the atrocities were “false flags” to create a new official enemy of the US in the form of Al Qaeda and Muslim extremists generally. In that way, he says, the US planners were able to bestow American imperialism with a badly needed new pretext to justify foreign interventions and wars for the control of natural resources, principally oil.
The American-led wars over the past decade in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia as well as the warmongering policies towards Syria and Iran bear that out.
A key indicator of a false flag operation in the 1998 US embassy attacks, says Schoenman, was the involvement of Ali A Mohamed, also known as Ali “the American”. He is labeled as the “point man”, who masterminded and coordinated the assaults. Two years after the blasts, Mohamed was arrested by the American authorities and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder.
It then transpired that the alleged Al Qaeda bomber had an impeccable US military service record, having trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and later working as an instructor in explosives at the John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School until 1989.
The American government narrative then claimed that Mohamed, who was married to an American citizen and who had lived in California, was all the while working as a double agent for Al Qaeda and that “he turned” by the time of the embassy attacks in 1998. This narrative was dutifully circulated by the American media. One headline in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001 conveyed the sense of treachery: Bin Laden’s man in Silicon Valley – ‘Mohamed the American’ orchestrated terrorist acts while living a quiet suburban life in Santa Clara.
Schoenman dismisses the official claim as “straining credulity” in face of the facts. He says that during the 1990s Mohamed was working for the American secret services in East Africa, including Kenya. The operative was also known to be travelling and liaising with Bin Laden’s network in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There is no way that US intelligence handlers did not know of every move made by Mohamed. This guy was recruited by the CIA in Cairo, where he was a major in the Egyptian army. He was then a handpicked graduate of Fort Bragg for American Special Forces and he went on to instruct green berets in psy-ops and explosives at the JFK School of Warfare. We are talking about the strictest security clearance in the US military. And yet the official account expects the public to believe that somehow Mohamed’s connections with Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda slipped their attention and that he carried out the US embassy bombings in a rogue fashion for the supposed enemy.”
Schoenman’s contention is that the Kenyan and Tanzanian US embassy attacks were a deliberate ploy by American military intelligence that was instrumented by Ali A Mohamed. The blasts involved suicide bombers and Schoenman does not rule out that there may have been willing Jihadi dupes recruited for the mission. But the bottom line is that the carnage was deliberately inflicted by US planners as a prelude to the “war on terror” and the subsequent spectacular of 9/11.
Supporting this contention is the fact that, despite pleading guilty in a New York court in 2000 to conspiracy to murder American citizens, Mohamed has never been sentenced. There are no records of subsequent court proceedings and his whereabouts are unknown. His Californian wife, Linda Sanchez, was quoted in 2006 as saying of her husband: “He can’t talk to anybody. Nobody can get to him. They have Ali pretty secretive… it’s like he just kinda vanished into thin air.”
That sounds like Mohamed made a guilty plea bargain with his handlers, so that he would not have to go to trial thus suppressing all details of the embassy bombings, and in return he would be given a new identity and not have to spend a single day in jail.
To recap, Kenya holds a special place in the evolution of America’s fraudulent war on terror – a war that it is conducting with trillion-dollar budgets in the pursuit of illusory or grossly exaggerated enemies. In the name of this spurious war, the US along with its NATO, Arab and Israeli allies are justified to invade sovereign countries, absolved from committing crimes against humanity, and free to commandeer the natural resources of subjugated nations. Warmongering, criminal imperialism is thus given a badge of respect.
Meanwhile, independent, peaceful countries such as Iran are traduced as “an axis of evil”, “a rogue state”, “sponsor of global terror”, thereby justifying aggression by the self-styled “upholders of international law”.
Paradoxically, the real sponsors of terror, who possess thousands of nuclear warheads in contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, are beating the drums of war against nuclear unarmed Iran and imposing crippling economic sanctions.
And when Iran peaceably seeks new oil markets in Africa to circumvent illegal sanctions, it is not only denied the right to conduct international trade, it is doubly wronged by being blamed for plotting terrorism – by the very states that are the architects of global terrorism.
Finian Cunningham is Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa Correspondent
cunninghamfinian@gmail.com
SOURCE: www.globalresearch.ca/kenyan-false-flag-bomb-plot-aimed-at-tightening-sanctions-noose-on-iran/31795
Second, al-Shabaab claims allegiance to Al-Qaeda, which has been a CIA front for decades, and plays multiple roles as boogeymen as well as “freedom fighters”, on behalf of US policy.
Pursuant to this, here is a grain of salt:
"The Same Terrorists the US is Arming in Syria are Killing Civilians in Kenya" (Read more below)
Kenyan Bloodbath: Reaping the “Benefits” of US AFRICOM Collaboration
NATO's North African terror tidal wave predictably sweeps into Kenya.
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, September 23, 2013
Land Destroyer
At face value, and how the Western media is attempting to portray it, the Westgate Mall siege in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi appears to be yet another senseless terrorist attack by the “religious fanatics” of Al Qaeda’s Somalia franchise, Al Shabaab. Already, both Kenyan and Western politicians, as well as editorials across the Western media, are attempting to use the attack as a pretext to launch a military campaign against neighboring Somalia, while fueling anti-Muslim sentiment across profoundly ignorant audiences in the West. A telling op-ed in USA Today titled, “Nairobi mall attack strikes against all of us: Column” states in its subtitle that:
As on 9/11, terrorists are waging a war on our modern, democratic way of life. Today, we are all Kenyans.
The op-ed continues by stating:
Just as important: The fight is not just a Kenyan, or African, fight. Somalia could be the new Afghanistan. A lawless, fundamentalist Somalia could incubate a Somali Osama bin Laden and new attacks on the USA, just as Afghanistan protected and nurtured bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
And:
After the Nairobi attack, the message should be “We Are All Kenyans.” Not just in our sympathy. But also in going all out to prevent another terrorist attack.
Leaving Somalia to al-Shabab is not an option.
Kenya: Proxy for US Aggression in Africa
What the USA Today op-ed fails to mention, even as it alludes to impending military intervention in Somalia, is that Kenya has already participated in military operations against its northern neighbor, including a full-scale military invasion complete with US and French military support in 2011. In the UK Independent’s October 2011 article, “Somali invasion backed by West, says Kenya,” it was reported that:
Kenya has confirmed that Western allies have joined its war on Islamic militants al-Shabaab despite denials from the US and France that they are involved in fighting in southern Somalia. Foreign military forces have carried out air strikes and a naval bombardment close to the militant stronghold of Kismayo, a Kenyan army spokesman said yesterday.
“There are certainly other actors in this theatre carrying out other attacks,” said Kenya’s Major Emmanuel Chirchir.
The Kenyan invasion has already caused a major rift between Somalia’s interim prime minister and president, who yesterday condemned the presence of foreign troops inside his country.
While the US attempted to deny any role in the invasion, it has admittedly carried out periodic airstrikes and drone strikes across Somalia, as reported by the BBC’s 2012 article, “Somalia air strike ‘kills foreign al-Shabab militants’:“
The US military, which has a base in neighbouring Djibouti, has previously carried out drone strikes in Somalia.
It has also launched air strikes against alleged al-Qaeda militants in the country.
Before using Kenya as a proxy for US aggression in Africa, and amidst two decades of unilateral, covert military operations, the US had backed two Ethiopian invasions into Somalia. The first US-backed invasion, under then US President George Bush, was carried out in 2006. USA Today reported in its 2007 article, “U.S. support key to Ethiopia’s invasion,” that:
The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.
The second US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, under US President Barack Obama, was carried out in 2011 – coordinated with Kenya’s 2011 US-French-backed extraterritorial adventure into Somali territory. The UK Independent’s December 2011 article, “UN-backed invasion of Somalia spirals into chaos,” reported that:
Kenya’s invasion of Somalia, hailed by the West and the UN Security Council, was meant to deliver a knockout blow to the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab. Instead it has pulled Somalia’s regional rival Ethiopia back into the country, stirred up the warlords and rekindled popular support for fundamentalists whose willingness to let Somalis starve rather than receive foreign aid had left them widely hated.
It was in fact this US-backed military invasion that served as the alleged motivation of the Al Shabaab terrorists who attacked Kenya’s Westgate Mall this week.
The Same Terrorists the US is Arming in Syria are Killing Civilians in Kenya
Beginning in 2011, geopolitical analysts warned that US, British and French intervention in Libya would create a terror emirate that would unleash a tidal wave of militant destabilization across Northern Africa and beyond. From Mali to Kenya, and as far as Syria, violence directly linked to the militants and the aid and weapons they received from the West in Libya, have now been felt.
[Image: (click image to enlarge) Truly NATO’s intervention in Libya has been a resounding success. Not only has the West managed to revive the terrorist LIFG organization Qaddafi had been fighting successfully for decades, but now “international institutions” have a casus belli spreading across the whole of North Africa, into the Middle East and beyond as NATO weapons and Western cash enable LIFG fighters to battle as far as Syria in the east and Mali to the west. The wave of terror unleashed and the predictable “pretexts” it will provide, has now swept into Kenya.]
Shortly after NATO’s intervention in Libya, it was Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a US State Department listed terror organization (listed #38), that played a central role in the invasion of northern Mali, which provided the pretext for French military intervention and occupation. AQIM of course, was merged with Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), the ground troops used in NATO’s regime change operation in Libya starting in 2011. In a 2007 West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) report and a 2011 CTC report, “Are Islamist Extremists Fighting Among Libya’s Rebels?,” AQIM is specifically mentioned as working closely with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The latter report admits:
There have also been reports during the past few years of a handful of Libyans who have traveled to Algeria to train with al-Qa`ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), although these reports are unconfirmed. AQIM has sought to capitalize on the situation in Libya
Geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar would elaborate in an Asia Times piece titled, “How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli,” that:
“Crucially, still in 2007, then al-Qaeda’s number two, Zawahiri, officially announced the merger between the LIFG and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM). So, for all practical purposes, since then, LIFG/AQIM have been one and the same – and Belhaj was/is its emir. “
“Belhaj,” referring to Hakim Abdul Belhaj, leader of LIFG in Libya, led with NATO support, arms, funding, and diplomatic recognition, the overthrowing of Muammar Qaddafi and has now plunged the nation into racist genocidal infighting. This intervention has also seen the rebellion’s epicenter of Benghazi peeling off from Tripolias a semi-autonomous “Terror-Emirate.” Belhaj’s latest campaign has shifted to Syria where he was admittedly on the Turkish-Syrian border pledging weapons, money, and fighters to the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” again, under the auspices of NATO support.
The torrent of militants and weapons flowing from Libya into Syria to support Western-backed regime change against the Syrian government has been extensively documented over the last 2+ years.
In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:
Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”
Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit
Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and as recently as last month, CNN, whose Ivan Watson accompanied terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo, revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants, particularly Libyans. It was admitted that:
Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks. A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.
CNN also added:
On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.
The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.
CNN’s reports provide bookends to 2011′s admissions that large numbers of Libyan terrorists flush with NATO cash and weapons had headed to Syria, with notorious terrorist LIFG commanders making the arrangements.
Al Shabaab – Al Qaeda’s Somali franchise – is also directly linked to AQIM and the myriad of other Al Qaeda extremist subsidiaries, including Libya’s LIFG, and the more recently christened Al Nusra front in Syria. The BBC in its 2012 report titled, “Africa’s Islamist militants ‘co-ordinate efforts’,” stated:
Three of Africa’s largest militant Islamist groups are trying to co-ordinate their efforts, the head of the US Africa Command has warned.
Gen Carter Ham said in particular North African al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was probably sharing explosives and funds with Nigeria’s Boko Haram.
Speaking in Washington, he said the separatist movement in northern Mali had provided AQIM with a “safe haven”.
Somalia’s al-Shabab was the other “most dangerous” group, he said.
This cooperation between AQIM, Boko Haram, and Al Shabaab has been clearly bolstered by the immense influx of NATO-provided cash and weapons flowing into Libya first to overthrow the Libyan government, then to be shipped to Syria to overthrow the government there. NATO’s assistance in expanding Al Qaeda’s operational capacity in North Africa can only be helping terrorists like those behind the Kenya Westgate Mall siege carry out cross-border operations of this scale.
Despite attempts by the West to provide other explanations as to where Al Qaeda is receiving its funds, manpower, and arsenal to carry out global campaigns, it is clear that it is a product of state-sponsorship – states like the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, and others.
Indeed, Al Shabaab’s attack in Kenya is abhorrent, unjustifiable terrorism – however, what Kenyans and the world as a whole must remember, is who armed them, who continuously props them up, provides them entire nations (Libya) as safe havens, and swells their ranks and armories with billions in cash and thousands of tons of weaponry at a time in war zones like Syria.
Al Shabaab’s continued existence, along with its counterparts AQIM across Northern Africa, LIFG in Libya, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Al Nusra in Syria, is due entirely to both covert and overt Western military and financial backing. The blood of Kenya’s innocent are on the hands of those within the Kenyan government willfully serving as a proxy for US aggression across Africa, and those across the West using Al Qaeda as a geopolitical tool to achieve their global objectives.
Al Qaeda: The Perfect Pretext to Invade, The Perfect Mercenary Army to Covertly Wage War
Al Qaeda, for the West, serves as the ultimate geopolitical tool. It can be used as a pretext to invade, as well as a nearly inexhaustible mercenary army to carry out ruthless terrorist campaigns and even full-scale war as seen in Syria and Libya, to achieve Western objectives. Additionally, the omnipresent, nebulous nature of Al Qaeda serves as justification to strip away the rights and liberties of people at home, across Western civilization – perpetuating a climate of fear within which the seeds of very profitable war can be sown and continuously reaped.How profitable? A Harvard’s Kennedy School research paper titled, “The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan,” places the total expenditures of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars alone somewhere between 4-6 trillion dollars. That isn’t 4-6 trillion dollars that went into a black hole. That is 4-6 trillion dollars that went to the Fortune 500 corporations that engineered and sold these conflicts to the American public in the first place.
The Washington Post in its recent article, “Americans are tweeting about ‘Syria’ almost as much as ‘twerking’ – sometimes more,” celebrated the general public’s ignorance regarding geopolitics. It stated:
The fact that more people are discuss twerking than Syria is not necessarily bad news. They share, as Floating Sheep notes, “little in common apart from recent media attention”: One is a pop culture phenomenon (both more fun and more accessible to a wider swath of the population) and one is a tragic, complicated news event halfway around the world (critically important, but not very fun — particularly on a platform many use for recreation).
It continued by claiming:
Of course, even if you polled all 300 million Americans on their relative interest in twerking and Syria, twerking would probably win — and that’s okay, too. There are many justifiable reasons why an individual or a population wouldn’t care about foreign news — things like a lack of education and limited access to computers or newspapers.
It is this “ lack of education” that the Washington Post’s editorial board and the special interests that steer it, claim is “okay too,” that allows these special interests to continue to use Al Qaeda both as the ultimate villain and to swell the ranks of its inexhaustible global “freedom fighters.”
The aforementioned USA Today editorial seeking to exploit the latest tragedy in Kenya also warned:
The Nairobi shopping mall attack is heartbreaking. The stories could so easily be American stories.
For the real interests driving and solely benefiting from Al Qaeda’s campaign of global terror, should they decide these stories need to be “American,” they will be, unless we rectify the “lack of education” these special interests have carefully cultivated and reassuringly claim is “okay.”
SOURCE: www.globalresearch.ca/kenyan-bloodbath-reaping-the-benefits-of-us-africom-collaboration/5351037
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See also:
Kenyan False Flag Bomb Plot Aimed At Tightening Sanctions Noose On Iran
Islamic Republic Falls Foul in African Cradle of America’s ‘War on Terror’
By Finian Cunningham
Global Research, July 06, 2012
6 July 2012
An alleged spectacular Iranian bomb plot uncovered in Kenya this week has all the hallmarks of a Western intelligence “false flag” operation – with the aim of tightening international oil sanctions even further on Iran.
Two men alleged to be Iranian nationals and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appeared in court in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, earlier this week on terrorism charges. Media reports on 2 July said the men are accused of planning to blow up American, British, Saudi and Israeli targets in Kenya, including the British High Commission office, a chain of hotels and a synagogue.
Then, two days later, on 4 July, the Kenyan government made a surprise announcement that it was cancelling a fresh oil deal that it had signed with Iran. The purchase agreement had been struck with the Islamic Republic only a few weeks ago. The deal would have involved the supply of 80,000 barrels per day (b/d) of Iranian crude to the East African country.
Kenya is East Africa’s largest economy and the new partnership was seen as a welcome opportunity by Iran to open up other African oil export markets in the wake of tough American and European sanctions that came into effect on 28 June and 1 July, respectively. The 27-member EU bloc was a mainstay of Iranian oil exports, representing about 500,000 b/d, or 20 per cent of Iran’s global total.
While the Kenyan deal in itself would have only gone a small way towards compensating for the loss of the EU market, nevertheless it held the promise of a wider regional destination for further Iranian exports. There were reports of similar transactions in the pipeline with Tanzania and Zimbabwe among others.
Only a day before the Kenyan cancellation, the director of the National Iranian Oil Company, Mohsen Ghamsari, spoke to Iranian media in an upbeat tone about the Kenyan contract and how this signified new export markets in Africa circumventing the loss of European markets.
“Under the current conditions, despite the oil exports’ halt to Europe, new contracts with other customer countries have been signed,” said Ghamsari. “One of the new markets for exports of Iran’s oil is that of the African countries,” he added, confirming that Kenya was one of them. “Soon, more details about new Iran oil export contracts to new countries will be announced.”
That promising African development for Iran now seems to have foundered, adding to an already bleak outlook for Iran’s economy following the closure of European oil markets and, even worse, cancellations by major Asian buyers. Some 60 per cent of Iran’s crude exports had until recently been destined for Asia, including China, India, Japan and South Korea. But, despite earlier defiant talk, these buyers have recently balked at Iranian orders so as to avoid American and European financial penalties against banks and shipping insurance companies dealing with Iran.
The upshot is that Iranian oil exports have crashed from 2.5 million b/d last year to about 1.5 million b/d currently – a drop of 40 per cent, representing a loss of $3 billion every month to the Iranian economy. Over the year, that translates into a 10 per cent contraction in Iran’s oil-based national economy, according to World Bank data. This, in turn, is having a drastic impact on social conditions in Iran, with the purchasing power of the currency, the rial, plummeting, and inflation and unemployment spiralling.
Kenya’s oil ministry claims that revoking the Iranian contract was not related to the alleged bomb plot. The ministry says it was merely complying with American warnings of sanctions’ penalties being enforced if it went ahead with the oil deal.
But it seems likely that the suspected terror attacks – reported widely in lurid detail – may have been aimed at making the abrupt scuppering of the Iranian oil purchase more politically acceptable, not just in Kenya, but elsewhere in Africa. Local and international media reports immediately connected the Kenyan bomb scare with other alleged Iranian terror plots over the past year, including the plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington DC, and a string of explosions in Thailand, India, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Iran has strenuously denied any sinister involvement in Kenya or the other countries mentioned. No evidence has been produced to substantiate the high-flown accusations made against Iran, yet Western mainstream media continue to run with such claims months after the alleged incidents have faded into oblivion.
As if on cue, as soon as the news broke about the latest bomb plot in Kenya, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, accused the Iranian government of “a terrorist attack in Africa”.
Netanyahu asserted: “After Iran sent its agents to murder the Saudi ambassador on US soil, the country has engaged in attacks in Azerbaijan, Bangkok, in Tbilisi, in New Delhi, and now we have just discovered a plot for a terrorist attack in Africa. Iranian terrorism knows no borders. The international community must fight against this major player in the world of terrorism.”
Apart from Netanyahu’s scripted, ready response to a breaking news story, there are other aspects about the alleged Kenyan bomb plot that indicate there is far more to it than meets the eye.
The two suspects, named as Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi, are widely reported to belong to the crack Al Quds division of Iran’s revolutionary guards. But their appearance in the Nairobi court showed men who were well over middle age, with slightly disheveled figures, lacking the killer, athletic physiques that one would expect of elite commandos.
Secondly, it was reported that as soon as the men were arrested on 19 June, they voluntarily led police to a warehouse in the coastal city of Mombasa to recover 15 kilos of RDX plastic explosive. That readiness to cooperate with police in locating explosives does not sound like the behaviour of highly trained, elite commandos.
Thirdly, when the men appeared in court this week they denied the charges of a terror conspiracy. That contradicts the above claim that the suspects led police to their bomb store.
Fourthly, Kenyan police were reported in local and international media saying that they believed the alleged terror duo were planning to use 15 kilos of explosive to attack up to 30 high-profile targets.
Now, while RDX (a component of Semtex) is a powerful explosive, a blitz on 30 targets with a total cache of 15 kilos would appear to spread the demolition material a bit thin (0.5 kilo per hit), which seems an unlikely bomb ration if one was indeed planning to carry out terror attacks on embassies, government buildings, hotels, a city centre shopping mall, and a synagogue.
A fifth anomaly in the official story is the allegation that all this synchronized destruction and mayhem was to be carried out by only two men. Given the necessary logistics, surveillance, transport, not to mention the time required to execute such a complex plot, the huge task would be physically impossible for two individuals to pull off – even if they were top-notch Iranian commandos, which the two hapless suspects are clearly not.
One further question mark over the latest supposed Iranian terror plot in Kenya is the shadowy involvement of Western and Israeli intelligence in the former British colony. For several months now the US embassy has been issuing unspecified terror warnings to the public. On 23 April, a Kenya news agency reported: “An advisory from the [US] embassy said the timing of the attacks was unclear, but intelligence information showed the planning was in the final stages.” In a statement, the US embassy said then: “The embassy informs US citizens residing in or visiting Kenya that the US embassy in Nairobi has received credible information regarding a possible attack on Nairobi hotels and prominent Kenyan government buildings.”
Since Kenyan troops invaded neighbouring Somalia at the end of 2011, there have been a series of grenade attacks in Nairobi that have claimed over 10 lives. It is not clear who is behind the attacks. The Somali insurgent group, Al Shehab, which is said to have links to Al Qaeda, has been blamed by Kenyan police, but the group has denied involvement. While the grenade incidents have proven deadly, there is a distinct sense that the US embassy terror warnings were hinting at a more high-profile event.
Moreover, when the alleged Iranian bombers appeared in court, they claimed that they were interrogated and tortured by Israeli agents upon their arrest. The Israeli embassy declined to comment to media on these claims. But if they are true, that suggests a highly irregular policing matter. Why should Israeli agents be involved immediately in a criminal matter of a sovereign jurisdiction?
A deeper look into the historic role of Kenya in the American-led “war on terror” raises even more disquieting questions that cast doubt on the latest Iranian bomb plot claim.
For a start, Kenya is a key ally of Western intelligence in East Africa. It is believed to serve as a clandestine base for American aerial drone attacks in Somalia, which intensified over the past year, with reports of dozens of deaths, many of them civilians, in the southern Somali region around the rebel-held port city of Kismayu.
Kenya is also a node in the international rendition network run by the US, Britain and Israel. Young men from Somalia and other countries in the region who are suspected of Islamic Jihadi activities or sympathies are rendered to black sites in Kenya, where they are interrogated and tortured before being transferred to other such sites in Afghanistan. Human rights investigator Clara Gutteridge told the US-based Nation magazine in excruciating detail how one young Somali man was captured in Mogadishu in 2003 by a Somali warlord and handed over to American officials, who had him rendered via Kenya and Djibouti to Afghanistan for five years of detention and torture before he was released from Bagram Air Force Base without charge.
The Kenyan authorities have therefore a history of close collaboration with Western intelligence agencies, and this collaboration dates back to before 9/11 and the “war on terror”. Indeed, a case can be made that Kenya served as a crucial incubator for the American conception of fighting a global war against Islamic terrorists.
In 1998, three years before 9/11, one of the most deadly assaults against US personnel and sovereignty was carried out ostensibly by the newly formed Al Qaeda terror network led by Osama bin Laden. On 7 August 1998, a truck bomb carrying 1,000 kilos of explosive was driven into the US embassy in Nairobi. The lethal force demolished the building and killed 219 people, 12 of them American citizens, and injured more than 4,000. Minutes later, in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of neighbouring Tanzania, a second truck bomb exploded at the US embassy there, killing 11 and injuring 85.
The twin attacks put Al Qaeda and its leader on the global map as America’s enemy number one. This was the genesis of the “war on terror” in which, supposedly, the former American mujahideen proxy army that had defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was transformed from dutiful ally to mortal enemy. The rationale for the switch was said to be the arrival of US troops in Saudi Arabia – the home of the holy Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina – which began in August 1990 in the build-up to the Gulf War against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein over his invasion of Kuwait.
During the 1990s, Bin Laden’s newly formed Al Qaeda (“the base”) was reported to be expanding out of Afghanistan and setting up in Sudan, Kenya and Somalia. Recall that this was at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse and with its demise the entire rationale of the America’s global military doctrine and spending was in danger of vanishing. During this period, Al Qaeda came to fill the void left by the collapsing Soviet Union as the new enemy for which the Pentagon’s trillion-dollar budget would have to be maintained, rather than it being furnished as a “peace dividend” for the good of American civic society.
The problem for US planners was making the nebulous Al Qaeda a credible threat to the American and world public. The devastating attacks on the US embassy in Kenya and Tanzania would provide such a crystallizing demonstration. But, as with the later, more spectacular 9/11 terror in New York, the bombings of the embassies were not masterminded by Al Qaeda Jihadis, but rather by American military intelligence. The horrific terrorist carnage would serve to mobilize the American public behind a new war agenda, no longer the one against the “evil Soviet empire”, but now against “Islamic extremists” hellbent on destroying American values and the American way of life.
American author and commentator Ralph Schoenman has been researching the 1998 US embassy bombings from that date. Schoenman is convinced that the atrocities were “false flags” to create a new official enemy of the US in the form of Al Qaeda and Muslim extremists generally. In that way, he says, the US planners were able to bestow American imperialism with a badly needed new pretext to justify foreign interventions and wars for the control of natural resources, principally oil.
The American-led wars over the past decade in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia as well as the warmongering policies towards Syria and Iran bear that out.
A key indicator of a false flag operation in the 1998 US embassy attacks, says Schoenman, was the involvement of Ali A Mohamed, also known as Ali “the American”. He is labeled as the “point man”, who masterminded and coordinated the assaults. Two years after the blasts, Mohamed was arrested by the American authorities and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder.
It then transpired that the alleged Al Qaeda bomber had an impeccable US military service record, having trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and later working as an instructor in explosives at the John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School until 1989.
The American government narrative then claimed that Mohamed, who was married to an American citizen and who had lived in California, was all the while working as a double agent for Al Qaeda and that “he turned” by the time of the embassy attacks in 1998. This narrative was dutifully circulated by the American media. One headline in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001 conveyed the sense of treachery: Bin Laden’s man in Silicon Valley – ‘Mohamed the American’ orchestrated terrorist acts while living a quiet suburban life in Santa Clara.
Schoenman dismisses the official claim as “straining credulity” in face of the facts. He says that during the 1990s Mohamed was working for the American secret services in East Africa, including Kenya. The operative was also known to be travelling and liaising with Bin Laden’s network in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There is no way that US intelligence handlers did not know of every move made by Mohamed. This guy was recruited by the CIA in Cairo, where he was a major in the Egyptian army. He was then a handpicked graduate of Fort Bragg for American Special Forces and he went on to instruct green berets in psy-ops and explosives at the JFK School of Warfare. We are talking about the strictest security clearance in the US military. And yet the official account expects the public to believe that somehow Mohamed’s connections with Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda slipped their attention and that he carried out the US embassy bombings in a rogue fashion for the supposed enemy.”
Schoenman’s contention is that the Kenyan and Tanzanian US embassy attacks were a deliberate ploy by American military intelligence that was instrumented by Ali A Mohamed. The blasts involved suicide bombers and Schoenman does not rule out that there may have been willing Jihadi dupes recruited for the mission. But the bottom line is that the carnage was deliberately inflicted by US planners as a prelude to the “war on terror” and the subsequent spectacular of 9/11.
Supporting this contention is the fact that, despite pleading guilty in a New York court in 2000 to conspiracy to murder American citizens, Mohamed has never been sentenced. There are no records of subsequent court proceedings and his whereabouts are unknown. His Californian wife, Linda Sanchez, was quoted in 2006 as saying of her husband: “He can’t talk to anybody. Nobody can get to him. They have Ali pretty secretive… it’s like he just kinda vanished into thin air.”
That sounds like Mohamed made a guilty plea bargain with his handlers, so that he would not have to go to trial thus suppressing all details of the embassy bombings, and in return he would be given a new identity and not have to spend a single day in jail.
To recap, Kenya holds a special place in the evolution of America’s fraudulent war on terror – a war that it is conducting with trillion-dollar budgets in the pursuit of illusory or grossly exaggerated enemies. In the name of this spurious war, the US along with its NATO, Arab and Israeli allies are justified to invade sovereign countries, absolved from committing crimes against humanity, and free to commandeer the natural resources of subjugated nations. Warmongering, criminal imperialism is thus given a badge of respect.
Meanwhile, independent, peaceful countries such as Iran are traduced as “an axis of evil”, “a rogue state”, “sponsor of global terror”, thereby justifying aggression by the self-styled “upholders of international law”.
Paradoxically, the real sponsors of terror, who possess thousands of nuclear warheads in contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, are beating the drums of war against nuclear unarmed Iran and imposing crippling economic sanctions.
And when Iran peaceably seeks new oil markets in Africa to circumvent illegal sanctions, it is not only denied the right to conduct international trade, it is doubly wronged by being blamed for plotting terrorism – by the very states that are the architects of global terrorism.
Finian Cunningham is Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa Correspondent
cunninghamfinian@gmail.com
SOURCE: www.globalresearch.ca/kenyan-false-flag-bomb-plot-aimed-at-tightening-sanctions-noose-on-iran/31795
legitimacy, is entering into agreements valid for centuries with foreign monopolies ---In Kenya we know this model as the LAIBON LENANA 1904 Ogirimiti with respect to Maasai lands becoming British crown dominions.