Kenyans hold march for national security after massacre

NAIROBI, Kenya – Kenyans prepared to march for greater national security Tuesday, April 7, following last week’s massacre by Somalia’s Shebab Islamists, ahead of a candlelit vigil on the final day of mourning for the 148 people killed by the militants.

Kenyan fighter jets pounded camps belonging to the Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in southern Somalia on Monday, April 6, but anger has been growing over allegations that critical intelligence warnings were missed. 

Special forces units took 7 hours to reach the university in Garissa last Thursday, April 2, some 365 km (225 miles) from the capital, as Shebab gunmen stormed dormitory buildings before lining up non-Muslim students for execution in what President Uhuru Kenyatta described as a “barbaric medieval slaughter”.

The massacre, Kenya’s deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, claimed the lives of 142 students, three police officers and three soldiers.

Tuesday’s demonstration was due to begin at 10 am local time (0700 GMT) in Nairobi as security forces continued their hunt for those behind the university killings, with the vigil planned for later in the afternoon on the third and final day of national mourning.

The army said Monday’s airstrikes destroyed two Islamist bases, and followed a promise by Kenyatta that he would retaliate “in the severest way possible” against the Shebab militants for their attack last Thursday.

“We bombed two Shebab camps in the Gedo region,” Kenyan army spokesman David Obonyo told Agence France-Presse, without giving details about any possible casualties in the lawless Somali area bordering Kenya.

Battle against Shebab

Kenyan airplanes have made repeated strikes in southern Somalia since sending troops into their war-torn neighbor in 2011 to attack Shebab bases, with Nairobi later joining the African Union force fighting the Islamists. 

“The bombings are part of the continued process and engagement against Al-Shebab, which will go on,” Obonyo added.

The Shebab fled their power base in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu in 2011, and continue to battle the AU force, AMISOM, sent to drive them out. It includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

The Shebab group has carried out a string of revenge attacks in neighboring countries, notably Kenya and Uganda, in response to their participation in the AU force.

On Saturday, April 4, Shebab warned of “another bloodbath” unless Kenya withdraws its troops from Somalia, and threatened a “long, gruesome war”.

Shebab fighters also carried out the Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi in September 2013, a four-day siege which left at least 67 people dead.

Five men have been arrested in connection with the university attack, including three alleged “coordinators” captured as they fled towards Somalia, and two others seized in the university compound.

The two arrested on campus included a security guard and a Tanzanian found “hiding in the ceiling” and holding grenades, the interior ministry said.

A $215,000 (200,000 euro) bounty has also been offered for alleged Shebab commander Mohamed Mohamud, a former Kenyan teacher said to be the mastermind behind the attack and believed to now be in Somalia.

Abattoir-like stench

Authorities on Sunday, April 5, named one of the 4 gunmen killed as a fellow Kenyan, highlighting the Shebab’s ability to recruit within the country.

Interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said high-flying Abdirahim Abdullahi, an ethnic Somali, was a university law graduate described by those who knew him as an A-grade student and “a brilliant upcoming lawyer”.

The spokesman said Abdullahi’s father, a local official in the northeastern county of Mandera, had “reported to the authorities that his son had gone missing and suspected the boy had gone to Somalia”.

Forensic investigators aided by foreign experts have continued to scour the site, where an Agence France-Presse reporter on Monday was among the first journalists to enter since the attack, describing bullet-scarred buildings, blood stains on the floors, and an abattoir-like stench across the campus.

Scores of family members of those killed continue an agonizing wait for the remains of their loved ones at the main mortuary in Nairobi.

Although Kenyatta has vowed to retaliate for the massacre, there have also been calls for national unity.

In an address to the nation on Saturday, Kenyatta said people’s “justified anger” should not lead to “the victimization of anyone” – a clear reference to Kenya’s large Muslim and Somali minorities in a country where 80% of the population is Christian. – Aymeric Vincenot, AFP / Rappler.com