As we secure Somalia, who will protect us from the enemy within?

Kenya: Yet again, Kenya woke up to the gruesome news that criminals had once more killed over 20 people on Saturday night.

These suspected terrorist attacks were in the Hindi and Gamba areas of Lamu. Indeed, this is very depressing news, especially considering that the Cabinet Secretary for the Interior has consistently been assuring Kenyans security has been beefed up across the country.

The audacious attackers have been targeting police stations and getting away with it. In the process, those meant to protect Kenyans are as helpless as we are.

At the Gamba police station, the attackers freed a suspect who had been arrested following the Mpeketoni attack.

That those killed were non-Muslim is neither here nore there. Terror knows no religion. Who then will protect the public from this aggression?

Even before the Government could ascertain what was going on, the insurgent Al-Shabaab militia group in Somalia had claimed credit for the Hindi attack.

If they are to be believed, all the attackers went safely back home. The implication is clear, nobody will be apprehended and the thugs will live to repeat their heinous acts another day.

For a people living under constant fear of the unknown, this is not good news.

Collectively as a country, we cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand and hope this curse of death will go away quietly.

There are some home truths that we must face, and others that we must investigate thoroughly, to put Kenya back on the path of peace and tranquility. The attempts to polarise our two major religions must be guarded against.

Kenyans must accept there is an enemy within. This enemy is exploiting our political, ethnic and ideological differences, the chink in our armour, to further sow seeds of discord and confusion.

On this score, the enemy has partially succeeded, judging by the finger-pointing and blame games as the security situation deteriorates.

This is the time that decisive action must be taken by those in authority. Kenyans must pull their resources together and identify who the enemy is.

Al-Shabaab has never shied away from claiming responsibility for the deaths. What we should determine is what these miscreants are doing in the country.

Their headquarters are in Somalia, the country they had run to its knees until the Kenya defense forces went in to liberate it. Having vanquished them in parts of Somalia, our security forces must get them out of our midst.

The Government has blamed the prevailing insecurity in the country on political agitation by the CORD alliance.

So far it is yet to provide tangible evidence to support this incendiary claim. The way things stand, this might neither be political nor tribal instigation to violence.

The absence of any arrests even as the government claims to be following some criminal activities casts it in bad light. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that some criminal elements could be taking advantage of a situation.

The shooting of a tourist while visiting a historical sight in Mombasa yesterday is bad for tourism.

A meeting of security chiefs to draw up better strategies is necessary, but even more urgent is that the Executive should sack top security chiefs who have failed to deliver.