Kenya: Nation Goes On the Offensive Against Muslims

Kenya's police have adopted drastic measures in the fight against militant Islam. The arrest of more than 100 Muslims who had gathered at a mosque in the city of Mombasa provoked widespread criticism.
A crowd of furious women surges towards the doors of the court building in the center of Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city. "To enter the mosque in a state of drunkenness and kick small children, that is no way to arrest Muslims," one of them shouts. Another is looking for her son. She has had no news of him for the past 24 hours. "We have a right to know where our children are," calls out a third. "Have you murdered them?"
That was the scene on Monday (03.02.2014), one day after the Kenyan police forcibly ended a Muslim gathering in the Musa Mosque in the port city. Clashes took place and at least three people were killed, including a policeman. More than 100 young Muslims were taken into police custody.
Police made numerous arrests as they moved through the mosque
Breeding ground for terrorism?
The Musa Mosque has the reputation of being a meeting point for radical Muslims. Rumor has it that it serves Islamist groups as a place where young Muslims are brainwashed into agreeing to carry out terrorist acts. Islamist preacher Aboud Rogo, who preached in the mosque, was murdered in August 2012. His successor, Ibrahim Ismail died in October 2013 when the car he was travelling in was fired on. Both were considered to be radical. Aboud Rogo's name was on international sanctions lists because of his ties to the Somali al-Shabab militia.
A Muslim group had used social media to issue an invitation to a meeting in the mosque on Sunday. Katrin Seidel from the German Heinrich Böll Foundation in Kenya says there was nothing special about the meeting. There had been numerous similar gatherings in past weeks and months. "They were not at all secret and it was clear that many young people from the region would take part," Seidel told DW. But it is precisely these young people who seem to have attracted the attention of the authorities. It is widely believed that those who go to the mosque are trained to become terrorists. On Sunday, participants reportedly raised an al-Shabab flag.
Spiral of violence
Fear of terror lies deep in Kenya. It is just three months since Islamists laid siege to the Westgate shopping mall in the capital Nairobi. More than 60 people died. It was the worst instance of Islamist terror on Kenyan soil since Kenyan troops marched into Somalia in late 2011 to fight against al-Shabab. In late January security forces issued a new terror alert for Kenya

By Philipp Sandner