US views Kenya attack ‘direct threat’ to national security

The Unites States views a recent deadly attack at an upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya as a “direct threat” to its national security, according to a report.

The US is sending dozens of FBI agents to Kenya to investigate the site of the attack and gather “every piece of information possible” to help prevent such an incident from happening again, possibly even on US soil, the New York Times reports.

Less than a day after the bloody siege ended, more than 20 FBI agents arrived on the scene and began investigating the wreckage. Dozens more agents will soon be deployed to Nairobi, American officials say.

Some of the agents are members of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force squad that tracks extremist groups operating in the Horn of Africa, according to a US official.

Over the next few days, agents will be collecting DNA samples, fingerprints and other biometric information, and examining guns, laptops, cameras and computers to ascertain how the attack was planned and carried out and especially if the perpetrators have any ties back to the United States.

For years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been closely monitoring al-Shabab, a Somali-based, al-Qaeda-linked militant group behind the Nairobi attack, which has also recruited numerous Americans, sometimes as suicide bombers.

The militant group is considered an especially dangerous threat because it is already training more than two dozen young American men in Somalia, the Times said.

Peter King, a Republican member of the US House Homeland Security Committee, said Sunday that al-Shabab militants have recruited up to 50 people from Somali American communities inside the US.

The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to eradicate al-Shabab, giving rise to concerns that the militant group might retaliate by targeting American interests in the region and possibly on US soil.

“We are in this fight together,” Robert F. Godec, the American ambassador to Kenya., told the Times. “The more we know about the planning that went into this, the way it was conducted, what was used, the people involved, the better we can protect America, too.”
Citing “credible information,” the US State Department warned on Wednesday that US government compounds could be targets of attacks.

Three of the gunmen behind the Nairobi attack were from the United States, sources within al-Shabab told CNN on Sunday. 67 civilians were killed in the massacre, according to the Kenyan government.