海角大神

As the town stirred from its overnight curfew the morning of听April 4, the last students of Garissa University boarded buses at the military airstrip under the watchful eye of Kenyan soldiers.

Rolling down the sole tarmac road that connects the northeast town to the rest of the country, the students chanted 鈥淏ye, bye Garissa!鈥�, relieved to leave behind the violence-ravaged region along the Somali border.

They had lost scores of classmates two days earlier, when Al Shabab militants听rampaged through their campus and killed 148 people, mostly university students who embodied the hopes of a rising generation. Now those who had survived were leaving for hometowns hundreds of miles away to attend funerals, grieve, and regroup.

The attack on Garissa highlighted Al Shabab鈥檚 deadly reach in Kenya, which has deployed peacekeepers to help pacify Somalia. And it revived a national debate over the wisdom of that participation amid a steady uptick in terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil.

Four years ago, Kenya unilaterally invaded Somalia in an operation dubbed 鈥淥peration Linda Nchi鈥� (鈥淧rotect the homeland鈥�). Months later, 4,700 Kenyan troops joined a 22,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission to restore authority after more than 20 years of chaos.听The mission, known as AMISOM, aimed to retake territory from Al Shabab, which espouses an extremist form of Islamist rule. The mission also planned to help expand the powers of the Western-backed central government in Mogadishu.

Kenya had another goal in Somalia: to make its territory safer after a spate of border incursions by Al Shabab and the kidnappings of aid workers and tourists.听Yet this intervention has led to bloody reprisals, from a high-profile attack on a Nairobi mall in 2013 to a slew of killings of Kenyans on buses, in schools, and at mining camps. Critics call it blowback, and blame Kenya鈥檚 government for wading into a war it can鈥檛 win. 听

Previous missions in Somalia, like the led by the Intergovernmental Authority of Development in Eastern Africa, had refrained from using neighbors鈥� troops in its mission.听After AMISOM took over eight years ago, it gradually began to rely on troops from Somalia鈥檚 neighbors, starting in December 2011 with Djibouti. It was an evolution that turned on its head the traditional international peacekeeping practice of drawing on troops from afar听听鈥撎鼺ilipinos in Lebanon, Pakistanis in Congo.

The practice was based on worries about neighbors having their own interest in the outcome of a conflict.听But terrorist groups like Al Shabab, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or Boko Haram in West Africa are showing that when peacekeeping forces come from neighbors with poorly policed borders, the war can quickly spill over to the homeland.

鈥淵ou don鈥檛, in any other mission, see the opposing group carrying out reprisal attacks in the troop-contributing countries because you鈥檙e not, in most peacekeeping operations, fighting a terrorist entity with cross-border goals,鈥� says Adam Smith, director of the center for peace operations at the International Peace Institute. Country-led operations, as seen with the fights against Boko Haram or ISIS, are a different story.听

But the ongoing threats have taken too great a toll for Kenya to sit back, say observers. Most recently, Al Shabab made at least two more incursions into Garissa, reportedly long enough to hoist its flag and a few days later ambushing a group of Kenyan police.

鈥淭he strange part would be not having Kenya part of it in the first place,鈥� says Ambassador Maman Sidikou, the head of AMISOM, to critics who question if neighbors should be used at all. 鈥淭hey should play their role and contribute to peace along their borders, to peace in Somalia, which also means peace for Kenya.鈥�

The war comes home听

Until 2011, Kenya had mostly played host 鈥� to refugees, peace conferences, and members of the Somali business community 鈥� and its intervention,听an operation dubbed 鈥淥peration Linda Nchi鈥� (鈥淧rotect the homeland鈥�),听ended decades of relative neutrality on Somalia.

鈥淭his intervention was sold on the fact that it would make Kenya safer. Whatever true intentions may have been 鈥� and there are many 鈥� it was sold as basically that we were going to protect ourselves,鈥� says听Cedric Barnes, Nairobi-based Horn of Africa project director for International Crisis Group.

But听today, Kenyans do not feel any safer.听 In October 2011, 26 percent of Kenyans said an increase in attacks was more likely as a result of the intervention, according to surveys by Ipsos Kenya. By December 2014, that had climbed to 55 percent.听

Behind this fear is Al Shabab. Since 2013, it has attacked Kenya听63 times, according to data as of late April from the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Slightly more than half of the听63 attacks听in Kenya occurred in just Garissa, Wajir, and Mandera counties. Most of the rest occurred on the coast.听

Disrupting the norm

The AU鈥檚 Somalia mission wasn鈥檛 initially envisioned as a regional effort. The idea that neighbors were too invested to contribute still had traction. But Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist government in Mogadishu 听and protect its borders. That paved the way for the AU to absorb Kenya鈥檚 troops a few months after Kenya鈥檚 own unilateral intervention (Ethiopia withdrew from Somalia in 2009, before unilaterally intervening听听after Kenya鈥檚 intervention. In 2014, Ethiopian troops in Somalia begun fighting under the auspices of AMISOM.)听

Many experts say AMISOM is much more of a military force than a peacekeeping one 鈥� it is trying to defeat an enemy, not achieve a cease-fire between two warring parties.

听鈥淚f you鈥檙e designing these missions as enforcement missions going after particular enemies, then it does make more sense to have regional players involved,鈥� says Paul Williams, an associate professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., with a focus on international peacekeeping.听鈥淭hey鈥檙e going to have the will to take the fight to them in a way that these more distant countries do not.鈥�

Kenya was also one of the only countries coming forward. Although Uganda and Burundi still contribute more troops than the 8,000 from Ethiopia and Kenya, AMISOM would have struggled to reach its mandated troop strength without their help.

Ambassador Sidikou of AMISOM, says Kenya鈥檚 security depends on achieving stability in Somalia and that it would be 鈥渦nfortunate鈥� if public pressure to pull out, which increased after the Garissa University attack,听was听heeded.

In fact, he hopes to see more peacekeeping arrangements like AMISOM鈥檚. His own country, Niger, has sent troops into neighboring Nigeria to fight Boko Haram.

鈥淎fricans have seen an African problem and they came from Africa to solve it,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the best model you can have.鈥�

Going in听

There was little public debate in 2011 about Kenya鈥檚 decision to go into Somalia. But now the pressure is mounting on the government to justify a continued military mission there.

AMISOM鈥檚 mandate 鈥� to shore up the weak central government and other institutions, including the national Army 鈥� has been met, to a degree.

But Kenya鈥檚 goal of 鈥減rotecting the homeland鈥� remains elusive: tourists are staying away and the currency is weakening. Curfews are in effect across the northeast and sometimes the coast, even as the country鈥檚 president pleads for the lifting of the US and Europe鈥檚 travel warnings. And as seen with Al Shabab鈥檚 continued incursions into the northeast, including a multi-hour stay in the town of Yumbis in Garissa in late May,听attacks in the northeast are expected to continue.听

听鈥淲e are all people. We need a safe place to stay,鈥� says Ifrah Aden Shidow, a Red Cross volunteer in Garissa who was one of the first on the scene the day of the Garissa attack in April. She knew many of the students well because she worked with the 耻苍颈惫别谤蝉颈迟测鈥檚 Red Cross club.

Ms. Shidow scrolls through a WhatsApp group filled with messages from the deceased club members, including a couple harrowing messages sent from inside the university during the attack: 鈥淎re u safe? are u safe??鈥�

鈥淣oooooooo!!!!鈥� comes the response. 鈥淭hey have me, I am dead.鈥�

Most of those students in the group are dead now, she says. Shidow saw some of them sprawled dead on the floor in the dormitories as she went searching for survivors.

鈥淭hose students were the future leaders, teachers, doctors, nurses,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e lost [148] leaders and that is a lot of loss to us.鈥�

This story was reported with support from the Ford Foundation.听

鈥婨ditor's note: The original version of this story has been edited to clarify听that Kenya went into Somalia unilaterally in October 2011 before joining the AMISOM mission in February 2012,听and to sharpen the鈥嬏齮imeline of when AMISOM first started using neighboring troops in Somalia.听The original version听also 鈥嬧�媜mitted the fact听that Ethiopia unilaterally entered Somalia in late 2011 before being absorbed into the auspices of AMISOM.