The killing of a Somali businessman in a busy marketplace in Garissa, Kenya this past week was the latest outbreak of violence in Kenya’s increasingly volatile county. The shooting of shopkeeper Mohamed Hassan led to a chaotic scene in which bystanders managed to apprehend one of the the assailants, who was later handed over to Kenyan police. Security officials in Garissa county later identified the assailant as an Ethiopian national and member of the Ethiopian security forces.
According to Kenyan criminal investigation commander, Musa Yego, in recent months teams of Ethiopian security personnel from the Somali region of Ethiopia have been sent into Kenya through the Moyale and Mandera border crossings with the task of killing suspected Ethiopian opposition members and supporters. “The passport carried by the suspected killer who was arrested in Garissa briefly after killing a businessman indicates he entered the country through Moyale border before heading to Nairobi, where we believe he met some people, before travelling to Garissa to cause a felony” Yego said. A team of five men, 3 believed to be Ethiopian security personnel along with 2 Kenyans, are in custody in connection with shootings. Kenyan sources identified two detainees, Khalifa Hassan and Abdirahman Abdi (Hijra), as the team leaders. Three clerics were also killed last month in a similar shooting in Garissa town.
In a county wracked with rival Somali tribes clashing and spillovers of the conflict in neighboring Somalia, Ethiopian government counter-insurgency operations have largely gone under the radar. Only on rare occasions do the illegal activities of Ethiopian security and intelligence personnel gain coverage in the Kenyan media, such as the kidnapping of 2 Ethiopian opposition diplomats belonging to the ONLF in Nairobi earlier this year. However, the presence of Ethiopian hit squads on Kenyan soil does not come as a surprise to Ethiopian refugees and rights advocates. In fact it is widely known that the Ethiopian embassy in Nairobi is frequently used as a headquarters for Ethiopian intelligence and security personnel waging war on suspected opposition activists and sympathizers on Kenyan soil. Ethiopian government personnel have often been implicated in assassinations and abductions involving suspected opposition activists from the Oromia and Somali regions of Ethiopia. However, Kenyan officials and media outlets often overlook such incidents, often placing the blame on unknown bandits or Ethiopian rebel groups attacking from across the border, even when evidence indicates otherwise.
With the glaring evidence that Ethiopian security officials – who have now been identified – are involved in the killing of Kenyan citizens in Garissa county, Kenyan authorities are once again in a bind; They can either hold their counterparts accountable, or continue to look the other way as the Ethiopian regime operates without boundaries.
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