Kenyan Muslims fear a backlash

KIKAMBALA, Kenya, December 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Kenyan Muslims living near an area where an Israeli-owned hotel was blown up expressed growing fears their large minority community would suffer a backlash.

At the Islamic institute of Kikambala, a short drive from where three Israelis and ten Kenyans were killed in the bombing, students were wary when two Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists showed up.

“You are American police, you have nothing to do here,” the students shouted, refusing to be interviewed or to permit entry.

There was a similar cool reception two kilometers (one mile) down the road at the Qur’anic school for girls, Umm ul Mu’mineen Aisha.

A young woman, her eyes peering through the small slit of her black face veil, replied shyly to questions.

“We heard about the bomb but we don’t know anything about it,” said the woman who did not give her name.

“Those people are not Muslims because Muslims are taught not to kill like that, especially during the holy month of Ramadan. Now we are scared of retaliations,” she sighed.

Kenyan government officials are not ruling out that the bombing of the hotel, plus an aborted missile attack on an Israeli plane taking off from Mombasa airport, was the work of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.

But Internal Security Minister Julius Sunkuli said that none of the six Pakistanis and four Somalis still being held for questioning had yet been directly linked to the attacks or to the Al-Qaeda network.

Khelef Khalifa, who heads the Mombasa-based Muhuri, Muslims For Human Rights, said the attack was a horrible surprise for his community which accounts for an estimated 25-35 percent of Kenya’s 30 million people.

“This is outrageous, it was a shock for us,” he said.

“But this is not our war, this is Palestinian, Israeli and the American war,” he added.

“But I fear that Kenyan Muslims will once again become the scapegoats, like in 1998,” he said.

On August 7, 1988, a massive bomb blew up the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, killing 213 people and injured some 5,000. It was later blamed on the Al-Qaeda network.

“After the 1998 bombing, many Muslims’ houses here were raided by the Kenyan police together with the FBI, without the minimum of human rights basis, without search warrants or anything,” Khelef Khalifa said.

“They detained a lot of people without giving any reasons. Kenyan police were clearly under the orders of the FBI people who could never act like that in their own country because of their constitution,” he said.

“We just hope it doesn’t happen this time. If they really get Muslim houses searched without warrants, we shall stand and defend ourselves this time,” he said.

“We are peaceful people and we condemn terrorist acts but we feel a lot of resentment towards” U.S. President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he said.

“Muslims are very angry with the Bush, Sharon and Blair administrations because of their policy towards Muslims,” he added.

Meanwhile, outspoken Kenyan Muslim preacher Sheikh Ali Shee repeated denials of charges by a French intelligence journal, Intelligence Online, that he was probably linked to Thursday’s attacks.

“I am not involved in any terrorist act, I never supported any terrorist act and will never support any criminal act in my life,” the Yemeni-born imam said.

“But we don’t want Kenyan Muslims to be victimized again,” he said.

“The Kenyan police was used by the FBI to violate human rights here,” said the imam known for his anti-American sermons at the Sakina mosque. “The U.S. is using its allies to impose its new world order.

“If we are targeted again, we’ll know what to do, through legal procedures,” he said.

“The government of Kenya should be suspending all relations with the Palestinians, the Israelis and the Americans. This is their war, they should not transfer their war (to) our country.”

Shee on Friday also denied any links to or knowledge of Al-Qaeda, except reading about them in the news media.

In another development, the U.S. said Saturday, November 30, it had received information that attacks similar to the anti-Israeli strikes this week in Kenya could be repeated in Djibouti and Yemen and urged U.S. citizens there to boost their security precautions.

In separate statements, the State Department warned that the potential for Kenya-like terrorist attacks throughout East Africa, particularly in Djibouti, and in Yemen was high.

The statements did not identify the source of the threats or the attacks in Kenya, but said that in Yemen there were signs associates of the Al-Qaeda network were planning new strikes.  

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