British Somalis fear backlash after Kenya mall attack

LONDON: The bloody events at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall unfolded thousands of miles away – but in Britain, Europe’s biggest Somali community fears there could be repercussions much closer to home.

Britain’s 100,000 Somalis reacted with horror when Somalia’s Shebab Islamists claimed responsibility for the carnage – and dismay that, once again, their homeland is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In the run-down northwest London suburb of Harlesden, a hub for the city’s large Somali community, men spoke with bitter contempt for the al-Qaeda-linked militants as they milled around the shabby Somali-owned cafes, grocers and Internet cafes on Wednesday. “We hate the Shebab,” said Ali Ali. “They are not Somali, and they are not Muslim either,” the 27-year-old said.

“There’s nothing in Islam that justifies the killing of innocent people. We feel so much anger about what has happened in Kenya.”

Ali and his friends fear their British neighbours will assume there is strong support for the Shebab in his community following the attack – which has left at least 67 people dead including five Britons – when nothing could be further from the truth.

Many British Somalis have seen their own familiesdevastatedbytheIslamistgroup’sdomestic campaign of violence, he pointed out.

“We want to make it clear that al-Shebab is not so much the enemy of Kenya, but the enemy of all of us,” said Adam Matan, director

If there was anyone sympathetic to al-Shebab here in Britain, I think the Somali community would be the first to report them. — ADAM MATAN

of the Anti-Tribalism Movement, a charity with offices in London and Mogadishu.

“Somalis in Somalia are the greatest victims of al-Shebab and their criminality. Look at how many explosions take place in Mogadishu.

“Whether you’re a Muslim or a non-Muslim, as long as you don’t agree with their beliefs you are treated as an infidel.”

But British Somalis feel their reputation is not helped by tales of Britons travelling to Somalia to join the Shebab fighters, which have caught the headlines in recent years.

Britons are believed to make up one of the largest foreign contingents in Shebab ranks.

But Matan said there was zero tolerance for extremism among most British Somalis.

“If there was anyone sympathetic to alShebab here in Britain, I think the Somali community would be the first to report them,” he said. — AFP