Kenya, South Africa in fresh diplomatic row

Diplomatic tension between Nairobi and Pretoria have reached boiling point, partly fuelled by perceptions that South Africa’s weak immigration system aided masterminds of two major terror attacks in Kenya.

Kenyan sources point out that Samantha Lewthwaite, suspected of being involved in planning last year’s Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s East African chief who was allegedly behind the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, both used South African travel documents. Kenya is also said to be angered by the ‘mishandling’ of top government officials who accompanied President Uhuru Kenyatta on a recent trip to Johannesburg.