NAIROBI: Somali militants linked to Al Qaeda urged Muslims to boycott Kenya’s presidential election yesterday and wage jihad against the Kenyan military which sent troops into neighbouring Somalia in late 2011 to help crush the rebels.
The Islamist Al Shabaab rebel group told Kenyan Muslims, who account for about 11 percent of the population, that the Nairobi government treated them as foreigners and second-class citizens.
“Your regions are the least developed in Kenya and have the least facilities. You have been misled by the false promises of the presidential candidates and the same empty promises are repeated on every election campaign,” Al Shabaab said in a statement cited by the US-based SITE service yesterday.
“What is incumbent upon you now is to ... boycott the Kenyan elections and wage jihad against the Kenyan military for they cannot afford to continue fighting an invasion abroad as well as an internal conflict at home,” it said. Reuters
