Garissa, Kenya: Al Shabab gunmen on Thursday seized Christian hostages at a Kenya university near the border with Somalia, in an predawn attack that killed at least 147 people and wounded scores more.
The gunmen attacked a university campus in eastern Kenya early Thursday, clashing with guards, forcing their way into dormitories, taking hostages and singling out non-Muslims, authorities said.
Kenya's interior minister, Joseph Nkaissery, said that 147 people had been killed, including four attackers.
He contended that the deadly siege of the university had ended, with security forces carefully sweeping the campus for any remaining threats.
Kenyan security forces surrounded the campus of Garissa University College and clashed with the gunmen throughout the day, eventually cornering them in one dormitory, officials said.
Abdikadir Sugow, the spokesman for the Garissa county government, said the gunmen were seen wearing "combat gear," including what appeared to be "either bulletproof vests or suicide bomb vests."
Al-Shabab, an extremist group based in Somalia and affiliated with al-Qaida, issued a statement through a radio station it controls claiming responsibility for the attack.
A spokesman for Somalia’s Al Qaida-linked Al Shabab, told AFP the group had taken non-Muslims hostage. He said those seized were Christians.
The spokesman said their fighters attacked the university early Thursday morning, began separating Muslims from non-Muslims and started an "operation against the infidels."
The group said in its statement earlier in the day that its fighters were still inside the university. In 2013, Al-Shabab mounted an attack on a Nairobi shopping mall that turned into a four-day siege and left 67 people dead.
The Kenyan authorities offered a bounty of 20 million Kenyan shillings (about $215,000) for information leading to the capture of Mohammed Mohamud, who they said was the "most wanted" suspect in connection with the university attack. They said Mohamud was also known by the names Dulyadin and Gamadhere.
President Uhuru Kenyatta issued a statement extending condolences to the families of victims and saying that he and his government "continue to pray for the quick recovery of the injured, and the safe rescue of those held hostage."
The disaster operations center said that four critically wounded people had been airlifted to Nairobi, the capital, for treatment.
Sugow, the county spokesman, said the college "hosts students from all over Kenya, of different religious and ethnic backgrounds."
Augustine Alanga, 21, an economics student at the college, said he had been asleep in his dormitory when the shooting began. Startled and afraid, he said, he bolted from his room without stopping to put on his shoes, and got cuts on his feet as he sprinted barefoot across the campus and into a nearby forest.
"When I looked back, I saw them," Alanga recalled. "There were five or six of them. They were masked. And they were shooting live rounds."
Dawn attack
The attack began about 5:30 am, when the gunmen forced their way onto the campus by firing at guards at the main gate, according to a statement issued by the office of the inspector general of the National Police Service in Nairobi.
"Police officers who were at the time guarding the students' hostels heard the gunshots and responded swiftly, and engaged the gunmen in a fierce shootout; however, the attackers retreated and gained entry into the hostels," the statement said. "Security agencies arrived and are currently engaged in an elaborate process of flushing out the gunmen."
The police surrounded and sealed off the campus, and by 11 am, three of the college's four student dormitories had been evacuated, while "the attackers have been cornered in one hostel," the Interior Ministry said on Twitter.
Joseph Boinet, the chief of the Kenyan police, ordered a curfew of 6:30 pm to 6:30 am in four counties in northeastern Kenya, including Garissa County, to remain in effect for two weeks. The town of Garissa is about 90 miles from the Somali border.
Kenya has long been a front-line state in the battle with Islamist extremism. In late 2011, citing a string of attacks and kidnappings in its country, the Kenyan military charged across the border into Somalia, sending troops, tanks and aircraft to push Al-Shabab out of its southern strongholds.
The military later acknowledged that the invasion had been planned well in advance, part of an effort to protect Kenya's borders from the violence in its northern neighbour and to safeguard Kenya's economic interests, including a huge port to be built just 60 miles south of Somalia.
The incursion managed to dislodge Al-Shabab from vital positions, but it raised fears of reprisal attacks within Kenya. Al-Shabab immediately vowed to retaliate and many Kenyans worried that the military campaign would incite terrorist attacks inside Kenya - a fear that seemed to culminate in the devastating attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi, a gleaming symbol of Kenya's modernity, wealth and relative peace.
Al Qaida affiliate
The group began trying to affiliate with Al-Qaida as early as 2009, but Osama bin Laden kept them at arm's length when he was alive, and internal documents have revealed that he was uneasy about the group's murderous tactics, including the indiscriminate killing of Muslim civilians. Al-Shabab did not become an official branch of al-Qaida until February 2012, almost a year after Bin Laden's death.
Since then, the group has maintained that it tries to minimize Muslim casualties, though Muslims continue to be targets in many of their operations. During the shopping mall attack, gunmen separated Muslim from non-Muslim civilians by asking religious trivia questions ("What is the name of the Prophet's mother?" "What is the name of his first wife?"). The "nonbelievers" were killed on the spot.
In a 1992 Al-Shabab document that was found in Mali by The Associated Press, the group tried to justify its tactics, saying that "all Muslims must stay far away from the enemy and their installations so as not to become human shields for them" and that there was "no excuse for those who live or mingle with the enemies."
In 2014, al-Shabab attacked a church in the coastal town of Likoni, and carried out two attacks on buses in the northeastern county of Madera. In those attacks, too, riders were separated according to religion, and a total of 64 were killed, including a group of teachers returning home from vacation.
Recent security warnings have emphasized a continued risk of attack by al-Shabab.
The group has actively recruited and radicalized young people in Kenya, especially in economically depressed areas along the Indian Ocean coast where tourism, a vital industry for the country, has suffered badly because of terrorist activity.
In March, the embassies of Australia, the United States and Britain issued security alerts about possible terrorist attacks.
"Potential targets for attacks could include hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, shopping malls, diplomatic missions, transportation hubs, religious institutions, government offices, or public transportation," the US Embassy warned after the reported death of Adan Garar, an Al-Shabab leader, in March.
