Bandits on the Border revisits the pan-Somalian nationalism of the 1960s when Kenyan Somalis attempted to secede and join the Somalia State that had been created after the merger of former British Somaliland and the Italian Trusteeship. This is the first insider's analysis of the so-called Shifta secessionist war and its degeneration into the apolitical banditry. It examines how it was affected by the Cold War, compares it with other African secessionist wars and explores the connections with America's war on international terrorism.