GARISSA: Gunmen from the Islamist militant group Al Shabaab stormed a university in Kenya and killed at least 147 people yesterday, in the worst attack on Kenyan soil since the US embassy was bombed in 1998.
The siege ended nearly 15 hours after the Somali group’s gunmen shot their way into the Garissa University College campus in a pre-dawn attack, sparing Muslim students and taking many Christians hostage.
Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said four gunmen strapped with explosives were behind the attack, the same number that killed 67 people during the 2013 bloodbath at a shopping mall in Nairobi. “The operation has ended successfully. The terrorists have been killed,” held told Kenyan media.
Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinet said the attackers had “shot indiscriminately” when they entered the compound. Police and soldiers surrounded the campus and exchanged gunfire with the attackers throughout the day but were repeatedly repelled. At least 79 people were injured and many airlifted to Nairobi, the national disaster body said.
One image provided by a local journalist showed a dozen blood-soaked bodies strewn across a classroom. But some students escaped unaided.
“We heard some gunshots and we were sleeping so it was around five and guys started jumping up and down running for their lives,” an unnamed student said.
Grace Kai, a student at Garissa Teachers Training College near the university, said there had been warnings that an attack in the town could be imminent.
“Some strangers had been spotted in Garissa town and were suspected to be terrorists,” she said.
“Then on Monday our college principal told us ... that strangers had been spotted in our college... On Tuesday we were released to go home, and our college closed, but the campus remained in session, and now they have been attacked.”
Authorities offered a 20 million shilling ($215,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of a man called Mohamed Mohamud, described as “most wanted” and linked to the attack.
Boinet said Kenya had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on four regions near the Somalia border.
The attack undermined a renewed drive by President Uhuru Kenyatta to persuade foreigners the country is now safe to visit.
Al Shabaab, who carried out the deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013, claimed responsibility for the raid on the campus in Garissa, a town 200km from the Somali border.
The group has links to Al Qaeda which bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on the same day in 1998, killing 224 people and wounding thousands.
The US condemned the latest attack and offered Kenya help in fighting Al Shabaab. Agencies
