The United States on Tuesday renewed its terrorism warning for US citizens in or thinking of travelling to Kenya in a step likely to anger the Kenyan government which has long fought for the alert to be lifted.
In a travel warning released by the US embassy in Nairobi, the State Department urged ”American citizens to consider carefully the risks of travel to Kenya at this time due to ongoing safety and security concerns.”
”The department recommends that private American citizens in Kenya evaluate their personal security situation in light of continuing terrorist threats and the limited ability of the Kenyan authorities to detect and deter such acts,” it said.
”The US government continues to receive indications of terrorist threats in Kenya and elsewhere in eastern Africa aimed at US and western interests,” it said.
The warning, which replaced an existing similar July 1 alert, did not elaborate on potential threats but said US citizens in Kenya should be vigilant for possible terrorist attacks and crime at public places frequented by foreigners, especially in Nairobi and the Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast.
”In particular, there is a continuing threat against westerners in the capital, Nairobi, and some locales in the coastal region,” it said. ”In addition to the terrorist threat, there are increasing incidents of criminal activity, including carjacking, robbery, and other violent crime.”
Kenya, specifically, and east Africa, generally, have been the site of several al-Qaeda-linked terrorist attacks in the past decades, including the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned resort near Kenya’s port city of Mombasa.
The United States has warned Americans about possible similar attacks for some time, sparking the ire of Kenyan officials who maintain their country is safe and have repeatedly asked for the warnings to be lifted. – Sapa-AFP