Terror Groups May Conduct Attacks In "Solidarity" With Hamas: Kenya

Kenya warned Thursday of the risk that groups such as Al-Shabaab could carry out "solidarity" attacks after the explosion of violence between Israel and Hamas. The East African country has suffered a number of bloody attacks carried out by the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab since it sent troops to its neighbour in 2011 to battle the Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists.

"Conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza impacts global security," Kenya's counterterrorism police service said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Terror groups like Al-Shabaab may conduct attacks in solidarity with Hamas to remain relevant.

"Kenyans need to be vigilant and report terror activities to police for action," it added.

The Kenyan foreign ministry on Saturday said it condemned "in the strongest terms possible, the unprovoked attack by Hamas on the people of Israel".

"This egregious act of violence has not only disrupted the fragile peace in the Middle East but also poses a significant threat to global peace and security."

Kenya is a major contributor to the African Union force backing Somalia's central government in Mogadishu in its fight against Al-Shabaab but has suffered a string of deadly retaliatory assaults.

The country last month marked the 10th anniversary of a bloody siege at the upmarket Westgate shopping centre in the capital Nairobi in 2013 that killed 67 people.

Two years after Westgate, Al-Shabaab fighters attacked Garissa University in eastern Kenya, killing 148 people, almost all of them students.

It was the second most deadly attack in Kenya's history, surpassed only by Al-Qaeda's bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998 that killed 213 people.

In 2019, Al-Shabaab gunmen killed 21 people at the upscale Dusit hotel complex in Nairobi.

In 2002, an Al-Qaeda suicide car bombing at an Israeli-owned resort hotel near the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa killed at least 13 people, including three Israelis, while an Israeli jetliner narrowly escaped a missile attack on takeoff from Mombasa airport.

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