20110502
reuters

NAIROBI/MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Kenya hailed on Monday the death of Osama bin Laden as an act of justice, but said more must be done to bring stability to neighbouring Somalia, where al Qaeda-linked fighters are waging an insurgency.

Al Qaeda first struck east Africa in 1998, killing hundreds of people, mostly Africans, in suicide bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In Somalia, a lack of a strong government for two decades has made the nation a haven for foreign jihadists bent on striking the region.

"Kenyans are happy and thank the U.S. people, the Pakistani people and everybody else who managed to kill Osama," Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga told Reuters after U.S. forces killed bin Laden in Pakistan.

Many Kenyans still lived with physical and mental scars from al Qaeda's 1998 attack, Odinga said. "Osama's death can only be positive for Kenya, but we need to have a stable government in Somalia," he added. "The loss of its leader may first upset the movement but then it will regroup and continue."

The United States has said al Shabaab militants who are trying to topple Somalia's U.N.-backed government are al Qaeda's proxy in the region. The group has a number of foreign fighters in its ranks.

In the past few years, al Shabaab has used suicide bombers to kill several Somali government ministers. It also claimed responsibility for suicide bomb attacks in Uganda that killed 79 soccer fans watching the World Cup final last July, and the group has also threatened to strike Kenya.

"JUSTICE FROM THE MAKER"

Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who was an Islamist rebel himself before joining a U.N.-backed peace process, also welcomed bin Laden's killing.