Kenya has been at war with Al-Shabaab in Somalia since October 2011, when Nairobi deployed troops in the Lower Juba region after cross-border criminal activities, including the kidnapping of tourists.

A year later, Operation Linda Nchi was announced completed, and Kenyan forces officially joined the African Union Mission in Somalia with the main objective of implementing the Somali Transition Plan.

Al-Shabaab has been fighting for years in Somalia to topple the central government and establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. And the war against the Islamic militants has not been a walk in the park. In 2016, 180 Kenyan soldiers were killed when members of the group attacked their base.

Its previous most deadly attack was the killings of 148 people at Garissa University College in north-eastern Kenya in 2015.

Despite efforts to eliminate the group, it has grown its presence in Kenya, where it has recruitment networks that it activates to make deadly attacks.

Only three days ago, the terror group abducted five chiefs from Mandera who were en route to a security meeting to plan President William Ruto’s trip.

Speaking at Moi Stadium in Mandera, the President said the fighters seem to have bypassed security check points to enter Kenya.

The audacity of the group in kidnapping government officials should be a wake-up call about the danger that it still poses to Kenyans. The main aim is for Kenya to withdraw its troops from Somalia.

The fighters, Ruto said, abducted the administrators because of the efforts that Kenyan multiagency security teams had shown against them in the region.

But the President also threw in unhelpful chest-thumbing that might put the lives of the administrators at greater risk.

“They thought that by [abducting] the chiefs, they would scare me into not coming here today. I have come and I will spend the night here,” he said.

Ruto emphasised that the Kenyan government would not cede even an inch of territory to the militants.

While asking the authorities to make sure that the administrators are brought home safely, we think that Kenya should rethink its counter-terrorism strategy.