[kictanet] Incompetence gallore--Offer solutions.

Wed Sep 25 11:28:18 EAT 2013

I agree with Yawe!  Let us not loose the opportunity to suggest solutions because this may not be the last time that we are seeing this sort of senseless attack. 
People, we will exhaust ourselves with blame! Can we for once imagine the difficulty of the circumstances in which our security were working? Do we for example have an idea  of the countless such raids that have either been foiled or minimized? I remember there was an alert that shopping malls would be attacked. Was this  like two years ago? People, let us remember that even in the highly secured cctv'd and over-resourced US, gunmen still walk into nursery schools and cinema halls and randomly
shoot everyone. Seriously, how is one expected to predict the actions of
mad men and a woman? And like a friend of mine has asked me “who would have
known that a four year old boy calling a gunman "a bad man" in his
face would halt his shooting, produce please of forgiveness from the gunmen,
free passage for the boy, sister and mother and even more, the departing gift
of Mars bars for the kids from the gunman?”
As we heap tons and tons of blame, let us  remember that  just as a doctor losses a patient/botches up a surgery or an editor runs with a graphic lead photo thinking he is telling the "real" story rather than repulsing his readers - there will always be unfortunate lapses, errors of judgement and plain blunders even in a security intelligence job. What solutions are we offering? We need to move from 'if only' to solutions of preparedness. 
Solutions, solutions and more solutions! 
RgdsGrace

From: dmbuvi at gmail.com
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:18:08 -0700
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Incompetence gallore
CC: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
To: ggithaiga at hotmail.com

A Standard article explains how disorderly and dangerous the operation was, Kenyans troops killed each other, and endangered the lives of hostages in a haphazard operation. 

The familiar shoot to kill order was given out http://t.co/M5tJ67KcPk

Sent from my Windows Phone

From: robert yawe
Sent: 25/09/2013 08:29

To: Dennis Kioko Mbuvi
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions

Subject: [kictanet] Incompetence gallore

Editorial from a Saudi Paper 

 Something wrong in Kenya 

 There can be no denying the extraordinary challenges facing the Kenyan 
government. Yet as the last terrorists were being rooted out of 
Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall at the end of a slaughter spree that 
has killed some 70 people and injured hundreds more, the Kenyan 
authorities need to be asking themselves some hard questions.

This is a country which because it is actively involved in combating 
Al-Shabab terrorists in Somalia is supposed to be on the very highest 
state of alert. Kenya did not choose this confrontation. In 1998 it was 
an amiably corrupt and easygoing country with merely a nasty record of 
armed robberies, mostly of rich Western tourists.

 Then Al-Qaeda
 launched one of its very first international attacks, a deadly assault 
on the US embassy in the Kenyan capital which left 224 people dead the 
great majority of them Kenyans. Thereafter, there was a succession of  
small attacks by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab which culminated in raids
 on Kenyan coastal tourist resorts and a Somali refugee camp, targeting 
and kidnapping foreigners.

 It was the final straw. Nairobi sent
 troops into Somali striking Al-Shabab fighters in the rear as they were
 pressed from the north by African Union forces. Thereafter, the 
terrorists resorted to low-level violence, mostly hit and run grenade 
attacks across the Somali border, until the attack by some 15 heavily 
armed men on the supposedly well-guarded up-market Westgate shopping 
center. The attackers managed to negotiate their way with  all their 
weaponry through the capital’s roadblocks. They contrived to organize 
their deadly assault without the Kenyan intelligence services picking up
 the slightest inkling of what was about to happen.

 Something 
has got to be wrong somewhere. And the closer one looks at the way the 
tragic events unfolded,  the more difficult questions it seems that the 
Kenyan authorities have to answer. Why for instance did it take almost 
half an hour for the first properly armed and equipped teams to arrive 
at the shopping mall?  Why was there no proper building evacuation 
scheme nor any obvious plan to respond to a terrorist outrage within the
 complex?

 Acts of bravery by shopping center staff, individual 
police officers and ordinary members of the public cannot mask what 
appears to have been a series of bungles by all those who should have 
been responsible for the safety of the complex and its visitors. 
Journalists noted that when heavily-armed special forces arrived, some 
seemed nervous and confused, perhaps as a result of the shouting that 
could be heard from senior officers who themselves seemed poorly briefed
 and unprepared and as a result unsure of how best to proceed.  The 
inevitable report into this horrific event may find that by delaying a 
rapid and firm response to the attack, the authorities permitted the 
terrorists to continue their killing spree and also allowed them to 
consolidate their position within the mall.

 Perhaps a clue to 
what went so disastrously wrong at the Westgate mall can be found in the
 devastating fire at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport last 
month. Though the blaze broke out in the early morning, meaning no one 
was killed, the extent of the fire and the extraordinary delays in 
getting fire appliances to the scene raised major questions about the 
competence of the Kenyan authorities.  The Westgate tragedy must 
compound these serious concerns.

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