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The Real Story: The Garissa Attack

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10/04/2015

The Garissa Attack

BBC World Service - The Real Story, The Garissa Attack

Is Kenya's response to the threat posed by al-Shabab doing more harm than good?

In the aftermath of the attack on Garissa University College in which almost 150 students were killed, we ask if Kenya's response to al-Shabab is doing more harm than good?

In the aftermath of the attack on a mostly Christian university in Garissa, Kenya, in which 148 people were killed, almost all of them students, by a small group of gunmen affiliated to Al Shabaab we explore whether Kenya's response to previous attacks has left the country more vulnerable rather than less. What lessons were learned from the attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013? Has the success of an international fight against Al Shabaab in Somalia displaced the threat across borders into Kenya itself? Has the Kenyan government's response, targetting members of its own ethnic Somali community, made the country less safe? And what is the appeal of Al Shabaab to new recruits from diaspora and other communities in the US and Europe when other militant Islamist organisations including Islamic State are also recruiting foreign fighters? 

James Menendez is joined by BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding, BBC Somalia analyst Mary Harper, Solomon Mungera, BBC Africa service editor, and Johnnie Carson, Former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and former US ambassador to Kenya, to discuss Kenya's security policy and the fight against al-Shabab. Has it done more harm than good? 

We also hear from the Bashkas Jugsodaay, who reports for the BBC Somali Service from Garissa, and from an eyewitness to the attack. 

(Photo: A woman at a vigil for victims of the Garissa University College attack. Credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic.)

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