Kenyan troops enter Somalia

Kenyan troops yesterday crossed into Somalia to hunt Islamist insurgents and militia believed to be behind a spate of kidnappings of Westerners.

Forces in convoys of lorries backed up by tanks and fighter jets were last night understood to be as far as 80 miles inside Somali territory.

There were no reports of fighting, but it is likely that the Islamist group al-Shabaab will defend against attack.

Al-Shabaab, linked to al-Qaeda, is battling Somalia’s government and aims to introduce strict Islamic law to the country. It controls most of Somalia’s south, where famine has been declared.

It is the first time that Kenya has sent its soldiers en masse into its chaotic neighbour’s territory, and raised fears it would provoke terror attacks in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, and along the Indian Ocean coast, popular with Western tourists.

In response, al-Shabaab tried to raise the alarm in areas it controls. Residents in the town of Qoqani, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said militants were going into homes and forcibly recruiting fighters.

“Are you ready to live under Christians?” one al-Shabaab official shouted on a militant radio station. “Get out of your homes and defend your dignity and religion. Today is the day to defend against the enemy.”

George Saitoti, Kenya’s internal security minister, said the mission was authorised following the of abductions of Westerners, and increased threats against Kenya from within Somalia. “It is worth noting that the concept of self defence in international law goes hand-in-hand with prohibition of aggression,” Mr Saitoti said.

“This cannot be left to continue at all and it means we are now going to pursue the enemy who are the al-Shabaab to wherever they will be, even in their country.”

The offensive came three days after two Spanish women working for Medecins Sans Frontieres were kidnapped from Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, in northern Kenya.

More than 460,000 Somalis live there, many of them recent arrivals fleeing famine and war in their own country.

Gunmen believed to be from Somalia seized the two women from the middle of the refugee camp as they left a health centre on Thursday.

There has been no word of their whereabouts since, but Kenyan police have said that they are likely to have been taken to Somalia, which lies less than 60 miles from Dadaab.

Their abduction follows two earlier kidnappings of Western women, including British holidaymaker Judith Tebbutt, from a tourist resort in northern Kenya in the last month.

Somalia’s weak Western-backed government in Mogadishu is fighting al-Shabaab with support from 9,000 Ugandan and Burundian African Union peacekeepers, but has little clout outside the capital Mogadishu.

Kenya’s invasion of its neighbour has raised fears that it will become a target for suicide bombers and terrorist attacks carried out by Somalis.

“Kenya has the right to go after [al-Shabaab] of course, but we are pretty concerned that explicit offensive action will make Kenya a target for the kinds of attacks we saw in Kampala,” said a European diplomat based in Nairobi.

She was referring to twin suicide bombings on pubs in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, in June last year, which killed 76 people watching the football World Cup final.