{"id":29775,"date":"2019-01-19T12:27:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-19T12:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29775"},"modified":"2019-01-19T12:27:28","modified_gmt":"2019-01-19T12:27:28","slug":"kenya-to-arm-private-security-guards-after-al-shabab-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29775","title":{"rendered":"Kenya to arm private security guards after al-Shabab attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kenya<\/a> has announced that it will arm private security officers guarding public places in the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack on a luxury hotel and office complex.<\/p>\n

The siege, which lasted 18 hours and left 21 people dead, was claimed by the al-Qaeda-linked Somalia-based armed group,\u00a0al-Shabab<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Armed contractors will “guard key installations” where there is “a lot of human traffic”, Fazul Mahamed, director general of the Private Security Regulatory Authority, said in a media briefing late on Friday.<\/p>\n

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Is Kenya containing the threat from al-Shabab? (24:36)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

At least two security guards were among the dead in\u00a0Tuesday’s attack<\/a> at the Dusit hotel complex in Nairobi.<\/p>\n

Private security companies, which have long called on the government to allow them to issue guns to security guards, welcomed the decision.<\/p>\n

“We feel safer now. This is something we have been calling for,” said Abdirahman Mohamed, managing director of Ismax Security, which employs more than 1,000 security officers.<\/p>\n

“Earlier, when responding to a security situation, we had to call for the police and that was not convenient as it took a long time,” he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

‘Reflexive response’<\/h2>\n

Security experts, however, have voiced concern over the haste with which the government is acting.<\/p>\n

“This is a poor move…It is a reflexive response,”\u00a0Abdullahi Boru, a Horn of Africa security expert, told Al Jazeera.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It will double the number of arms in private hands, which could backfire in the long run,” he continued, adding: “It further demonstrates once again, how Kenyan authorities think they can fight terrorism using force.”<\/p>\n

The government has said the security guards will have to go through a rigorous six-month-long compulsory training course on handling guns before they are issued firearms.<\/p>\n

The attack on the Dusit hotel complex was not the first time the Kenyan capital has been targeted by gunmen from al-Shabab.<\/p>\n

In September 2013, fighters from the group attacked the Westgate shopping mall<\/a>\u00a0in a four-day-long siege that left more than 65 people dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Daughters of al-Shabab | Radicalised Youth (25:08)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenya has announced that it will arm private security officers guarding public places in the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack on a luxury hotel and office complex. The siege, which lasted 18 hours and left 21 people dead, was claimed by the al-Qaeda-linked Somalia-based armed group,\u00a0al-Shabab. Armed contractors will “guard key installations” where there is “a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}