Students and teachers trapped as reinforcements ‘flush out gunmen’
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MASKED gunmen from Somalia’s al-Shebab Islamist group stormed a Kenyan university as students were sleeping yesterday, hurling grenades and shooting dead at least 70 people before taking Christians hostage.
About 80 others were wounded in the assault, still ongoing some 12 hours after the first grenades were used to blast open the gates of the university in the northeastern town of Garissa, near the lawless border with war-torn Somalia.
Kenyan security services have killed four Islamist fighters and intensified their rescue operation to free students taken hostage by the Somali group, the Interior Ministry said.
Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said about 500 out of 815 students were accounted for and 90 percent of the threat had been eliminated. However he cautioned that “the operation is ongoing, anything can happen.”
Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinet said the country has introduced a dusk to dawn curfew for four regions near Somalia border as a security precaution.
The al-Qaida-linked al-Shebab claimed the predawn attack, the same insurgents who carried out the Westgate shopping mall massacre in Nairobi in September 2013, when four gunmen slaughtered at least 67 people in a bloodbath that lasted four days.
Al-Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told reporters the gunmen had taken non-Muslims hostage, but gave no numbers.
“When our men arrived, they released the Muslims. We are holding others hostage,” Rage said, describing those seized as Christians.
“Kenya is at war with Somalia,” Rage said, referring to the thousands of Kenyan troops in Somalia as part of an African Union military mission.
Gunfire could still be heard sporadically 12 hours after the attack began, as the interior ministry said the “attackers have been cornered in one hostel.”
Soldiers with tanks were deployed around the campus.
The man whom Kenyan police say was a possible mastermind of the attack is currently in charge of al-Shebab’s external operations against Kenya, according to Kenya’s intelligence service.
Boinet said “the gunmen shot indiscriminately” after storming the compound.
The sprawling campus has both teaching areas and residential blocks.
The university has several hundred students from different parts of Kenya. The number of teachers and students trapped inside the campus was unclear as gunfire and explosions were heard coming from the site.
“Police... engaged the gunmen in a fierce shootout, however the attackers retreated and gained entry into one of the hostels,” Boinet said.
He added that reinforcements had arrived and were “flushing out the gunmen.”
A witness, Ahmed Nur, said that he saw the bodies of two university guards, shot by the attackers.
Kenya Red Cross, quoting local health officials, said that 30 people had been taken to hospital, “the majority” with gunshot wounds.
Kenya has been hit by a wave of grenade and gun attacks, often blamed on sympathizers of al-Shebab and sometimes aimed at police targets, since the army crossed into southern Somalia in 2011 to attack Islamist bases.
British High Commissioner Christian Turner condemned the “cowardly” attack, while US Ambassador Robert Godec called the killings “heinous.”
Kenya’s government has been under fire since the Westgate attack. In June and July last year al-Shebab gunmen killed close to 100 people in a series of attacks on the town of Mpeketoni and nearby villages.
In November, al-Shebab claimed responsibility for holding up a bus outside Mandera town, separating passengers according to religion and murdering 28 non-Muslims.
Ten days later 36 non-Muslim quarry workers were also massacred in the area.
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