Officials: 5 arrested in Kenya university massacre

Saturday, April 4, 2015

advertisements

GARISSA, Kenya -- Five people were arrested Friday for allegedly taking part in an attack on a Kenyan university that killed at least 147, officials said.

Masked gunmen, belonging to the Somali terror group al-Shabaab, stormed Garissa University on Thursday, and engaged police and military forces in a day-long siege. By the end, dozens had been killed -- including four gunmen -- and many others wounded.

Friday, five suspects were taken into custody, CNN and Sky News reported. Kenyan Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery confirmed the arrests.

It was not immediately known exactly what role the five suspects might have played in the campus assault.

The gun battle was a bloody one. All but five of those killed were students, police said, and more than 100 were injured -- 19 critically. Authorities and school officials were trying to determine whether everyone has been accounted for. Nkaissery said the university should be able to make that determination shortly.

"I am so worried. I had a son who was among the students trapped inside the college, and since yesterday I have heard nothing," Habel Mutinda said. "I tried to identify his body among those killed... I have to do that before the body goes bad in the heat."

"This incident ... is one of those incidents which can surprise any country," Nkaissery said.

In addition to the 142 students killed, three security officers and two campus police officials died, CNN reported.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who this week announced plans to make his first official visit to Kenya, called the nation's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, Friday to express his condolences. Obama said his upcoming trip, scheduled for July, will not be affected by the university attack.

"Words cannot adequately condemn the terrorist atrocities that took place at Garissa University College, where innocent men and women were brazenly and brutally massacred," Obama said in a statement. "We will stand hand-in-hand with the Kenyan Government and people against the scourge of terrorism and in their efforts to bring communities together."

Authorities have identified Mohamed Mohamud, who also goes by the aliases Dulyadin and Gamadhere, as the alleged al-Shabaab "mastermind" behind the attack. The group is known to have links to al-Qaida. The Interior Ministry posted a "most wanted" notice for the man, offering a reward of 20 million Kenyan shillings, about $215,000.

BBC News reported Mohamud is best known by the alias Mohamed Dulyadin, which means "ambidextrous" in the Somali language. Until 2007, he was the headmaster at Al-Najah Islamic school, a Garissa-based madras known in some cases to groom extremists. Now based in Mogadishu, Mohamud is also considered the organizer of a May 2014 attack on the Kenyan parliament that left 10 dead.

Since the harrowing rampage at the university began, grisly details of the fight have been reported by various news outlets. One witness recalled that the gunmen taunted some of the students -- demanding that they call their families and urge them to tell Kenya's government to withdraw troops from Somalia, before killing them anyway.

Other reports said some surviving students collected blood from dead students and smeared it on their bodies to give gunmen the impression that they were dead.

"There were bodies everywhere in execution lines. We saw people whose heads had been blown off, bullet wounds everywhere, it was a grisly mess," aid worker Reuben Nyaora told Sky News.

The gunmen infiltrated multiple campus buildings after launching the attack, witnesses said, including an Islamic mosque and a residential complex.

Authorities have continued to find survivors from the attack, some of whom hid from danger beneath a pile of corpses.

Meanwhile, many are questioning security at the school, a clear target with a mixed Muslim and Christian student body, after the United Kingdom and Australia posted warnings to citizens traveling to Kenya. In early March, Kenyan governmental institutions also were put on high alert about a possible al-Shabaab attack.

Friday, local media reported the al-Shabaab gunmen told students there would be more attacks on Kenyan schools in the coming weeks. There were also some reports students were beheaded when they confirmed they were Christians.

Home
Email

Hiiraan Online