Kenya at War with Al-Shabaab

African Affairs published in January 2015 an article titled "Kenya at War: Al-Shabaab and Its Enemies in Eastern Africa" by David M. Anderson, professor at the University of Warwick, and Jacob McKnight, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford African Health Systems Collaboration.

The article reviews the background to Kenya's invasion of southern Somalia, Operation Linda Nchi, and the prosecution of the war by Kenya's Defense Forces up to the capture of the city of Kismayo and the contest to control its lucrative port and the charcoal trade.  The authors then discuss al-Shabaab's response, showing how the  movement has reinvented itself to take the struggle into Kenya.  They conclude that while the military defeat of al-Shabaab in southern Somalia seems inevitable, such a victory may become irrelevant to Kenya's ability to negotiate a political settlement with its Somali and wider Muslim communities at home.