FACT: TERRORISM IS A GLOBAL THREAT

FACT: TERRORISM IS A GLOBAL THREAT

As at 10th Jan 2015

As I am writing this, news of the killing of two suspected terrorists, who happen to be brothers Cherif Kouachz and Said Kouachi, are going viral across the world. The two carried out a horrific attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, France. Many people continue to condemn this act describing it as an attack to the freedom of expression.
In the words of France’ president, France is living through a trial, maybe one of the worst massacres the country has experienced in the last 50 years. Security forces in Paris remain in high alert after other two suspected terrorists took hostages in a grocery shop under siege. These two incidences remind me of the Westgate attack in Kenya by Al Shabaab terrorists which left 67 people dead and many scores injured. This outlawed group cited that the entry of Kenyan troops into Somalia under the operation Linda Nchi prompted their continuous attacks in Kenya
The president of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta condemned the act and described it as one full of cowardice. In his subsequent responses to the run-away security situation in the country, especially from terrorist attacks, he repeatedly said that Terrorism is not an enemy or a challenge that only Kenya has to battle with, but rather a global threat. This stand by the president now sounds so true to many who are following the attacks in Paris, and the recent ones across the world.
Not only Kenya and France have fallen victims of these attacks. Before this, a self-styled muslim cleric named Man Haron Monis held several people hostage in a café in Sydney Australia, before being killed by the police in a dramatic encounter that led to the death of two civilians.
On Sunday, 4th January 2015, via a suicide car bomb blast in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, 4 people were killed. Again the Al shabaab claimed responsibility.
Recently in Nigeria, the outlawed terrorist group, Boko Haram, which has been carrying out attacks on several parts of the country, seized a military camp in the Northern part of the country, forcing the military officers to flee and abandon it. In the latest revelations, the group is said to have issued threats of attacks to Cameroon.
The ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq continue to harm many across the world.
The bottom line is clear, terrorism is a global threat, and no country or state is prone to terrorist activities. And therefore it needs a global prompted mechanism to tackle it. We should all unite irregardless of our ethnic backgrounds, race, nationality or even religion to tackle this threat to our hard earned peace and stability.