Reports emerge of US denying Kenya and Uganda intelligence information
3 min read
Reports emerge claiming is US denying Kenya and Uganda intelligence information following recent terror attacks
Reports emerge claiming is US denying Kenya and Uganda intelligence information following recent terror attacks.
Recent months have seen a spike in terrorist assaults in Kenya and Uganda, with allegations stating that the United States altered its security policies to withhold intelligence from the two countries.
Unverified reports also claimed that Washington was reducing regional efforts to forge powerful military alliances, driving Kenya and Uganda into the deep end.
On Sunday, June 18, 10 members of the General Service Unit (GSU) were hurt in Lamu, close to the Somalia border, as it was believed that suspected extremists had taken advantage of the loophole to resurge.
In a similar vein, on May 16, suspected IS terrorists allegedly murdered close to 40 students at the Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe, Uganda.
Six more kids were taken hostage to transport food that insurgents had stolen from the school’s supply rooms.
Uganda had also lost 54 soldiers two weeks earlier in a separate attack linked to Al Shabaab extremists.
Speaking to media, Security expert, George Musamali shed more light on the allegations that the US had left Kenya and Uganda at the mercy of terrorists by withholding crucial intel.
Musamali first opined that the two countries were at fault for overdependence on the US, from military training to surveillance and coordination in peacekeeping missions.
“Why do we expect the US to give us intel, yet we have operatives on the ground?
“The US has resourced us by training our intelligence officers and it is not their responsibility to be collecting actionable intel on behalf of Kenya and Uganda,” he remarked.
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Musamali, a former police officer, added that there was a need to draft homegrown solutions to tackling terrorism.
He, however, disagreed with the notion that Washington was withholding intelligence reports to punish the two countries.
“I do not think that is the case. Terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon not only affecting Kenya.
“There is an intelligence-sharing agreement between countries in the world concerning terrorism,” he explained why Kenya receives security briefs from international security agencies.
Musamali further noted that security intel is highly perishable, so Kenya should be active in sourcing its own intel.
“Whatever intel you get today, it is deemed irrelevant tomorrow. Measures put in place before become obsolete, and thus we cannot blame the intelligence community for not helping us counter the Lamu attacks,” he added.
He further claimed that the Americans may have also been caught flat-footed by the recent attacks in East Africa.
In March 2023, the US expressed concerns about Uganda’s law criminalizing same-sex conduct and argued that it represented one of the world’s most extreme actions against human rights. Security experts declined to comment on whether the law ascended to by Museveni was related to reports claiming that the US deviated from offering intel.
The US was yet to respond to the allegations by the time of publishing this article.
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