Al Shabaab: Armed Police Deployed at Churches
Kenyans worshipped under the watch of armed security officers as reality sunk in that Al-Shabaab is keen on making most churches and some mosques their playground and killing fields.
Just as Kenyans woke up on Sunday, breakfasted, picked their Bibles and raced to church to pray with their families, so did officers assigned to guard them oil their guns and rush to take positions at the church gates.
They then frisked the faithful and swept their bodies and bags using metal detectors, just in case some of them bore arms or explosives, and not even the children were spared the security clearance, hitherto unseen in churches.
The unspoken fear of what happened in Garissa last Sunday, when gunmen sprayed police officers at the gate with bullets, killing one of the who was a Muslim, and thereafter hurling explosives at those in the prayer hall lurked in every mind.
After the guns fell silent, 17 people lay dead, victims of reprisal attacks against Kenya Defence Force’s operation inside Somalia.