KENYA faces a familiar problem: it has invaded a country to stamp out terrorism but has found itself trapped. Casualties have risen, domestic pressures back home are multiplying and elections have to be won. The Kenyans invaded Somalia last month, so the consequences will take some time to emerge. Al-Shabaab militants have been raiding the neighbouring country, kidnapping and killing. Now three governments — those of Kenya, Uganda and the Somalia rump state headed by President Sheikh Sharif Ahmad — have joined hands to crush Al Shabaab, with Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula calling it a “historic opportunity to restore stability and security” in Somalia

Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab is indifferent to human suffering. It believes in imposing its own version of religion by force, eliminates those who oppose its skewed sense of jihad and makes no bones about it. Last year a double suicide attack killed 76 people in Kampala, Uganda, and last month in a suicide truck bombing it killed 70 of its own people in Mogadishu. The invasion by thousands of Kenyans has prompted the al-Shabaab leadership to warn of greater reprisals against Kenya. Asking his followers to stop such small-scale attacks as throwing grenades on buses an al-Shabaab commander told his guerilla force “we want huge blasts”.

Kenya's dilemma is obvious: it feels it cannot withdraw without achieving its aim of destroying al-Shabaab. But the presence of thousands of Kenyan soldiers only serves to help al-Shabaab, which will say it is fighting an invading force and will most probably win support even from the neutrals. Al-Shabaab fighters were trained by Osama bin Laden's men, and are unlikely to give Kenya and Uganda — the latter has thousands of peacekeepers in Somalia — a victory. Kenya and others have no choice but to find a negotiated settlement. President Ahmad writ doesn't run beyond Mogadishu. As experience in Afghanistan shows, the Islamist guerillas are unlikely to agree to a ceasefire, except on their own terms. Unless something dramatic happens, the people of a potentially rich country like Somalia seem condemned to unending suffering in a brutal war the majority never wanted.