Did Kenyan security Forces snooze on the Job in Garissa?

Yesterday’s attack that left at least 17 dead and 50 injured in the border town of Garissa has raised more questions than answers as well as spread fear among Kenyans near the Somali border. This is as for now no one has been arrested with hopes of an arrest dwindling with the meltdown in time. However questions that arise from this attack include: Was this an ambush on the security forces in plain daylight? If not, did the locals collaborate and shield the Al Shabaab sympathizers. The last question that will dictate the way this debate progresses is: Were the attackers from within or without with the latter referring to Somalia. In the first part of the question what will puzzle many is how seven gun wielding Al Shabaab militants dressed in their attack regalia such as masked face and blue suits would have missed the view of the public. This brings us to the second part of the question: Did the locals collaborate and shield the Al Shabaab sympathizers? Garissa a town with over 60,000 inhabitants and the biggest town between Nairobi and Mogadishu is moderately populated with an easy sight over long distances given its topography. It would then be hard to penetrate this town with this kind of dressing as well as wielding the rifles. The plain would have further given the security forces an opportunity to have an idea of any intruders. This tackles the question of whether an ambush could have been carried in plain daylight. According to the Daily Nation newspaper some of those interviewed reported seeing youth celebrating following the attack, hold that thought! Do not forget that the attackers fired till they emptied their cartridge which would mean at least 30 shots were fired assuming one person emptied their magazine. The last and most important question is whether this was the work of a local or foreign terrorist. Having exhausted the first three questions, an aggression by local terrorist points an accusing finger on the national security and intelligence service NSIS. The fact that no one has been arrested in the area even after a grenade was left at the scene after it failed to explode, thus providing fingerprints or the identity of those behind the attacks, raises more eyebrows. Even in the lack of this evidence a door to door, in such a small town, was not a long shot for a country whose security was threatened and the reliability of the security organs in the line. Should the attackers have been foreign this poses an even better shot for the Kenya defense forces to apprehend them before making it to Somalia. As per what we know the Al Shabaab use 4X4 pick ups vans hence an escape and entry on the badly maintained road infrastructure is not a far thought. Another fact is that Garissa is just 150 kilometers from the Somali border hence easy to access and with no need to refuel. However 150 kilometers on such a terrain will not take you the normal two hours you use by bus, at least I suggest 4 hours on the minimum to cross the border and disappear. Just another 150 kilometers away by road to the north east is a Kenya air force base in the town of Wajir. From here the Kenya defense forces would have successfully launched a hunt using helicopters and trail the attackers as a ground operation continued. Did I forget to mention that Garissa is an important military base, from where ground forces have been deployed across the frontier into Somalia? With superiority in equipment we would have expected the Kenya army to reinforce the border area as well as track the militants by land. With the right and timely deployment it was almost not humanly probable to make it through to Somalia which is also largely held by the Kenya defense forces in towns neighboring Somalia. My assumption is that there would have been an ensuing gun fight as the militias resist arrest. The Kenya -Somalia border being just 400 kilometers from the Laikipia airbase would have meant any target headed to Somalia was within range of the supersonic F5E jets in use by the Kenya air force in minutes not counting the multiple Kenyan attack helicopters. REMEMBER: Within less than time taken to get to the border, which we approximated, was 4 hours, for an operative well vast with the area it was impossible to cross over to an area already occupied by the Kenyan troops. It is then arguably correct that Kenya’s defense forces and police had both the land and air capability to neutralize the fleeing militia. So where did the country’s security go wrong? Or were the security organs just sleeping?