147 killed after militants storm Kenyan university

GARISSA, Kenya: Gunmen from the militant group Al-Shabab stormed a Kenyan university campus on Thursday, killing and wounding dozens of students and staff.
Police and soldiers surrounded the Garissa University College and exchanged gunfire with the attackers throughout the day.
Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, an Al-Shabab’s spokesman, said the gunmen were holding Christian hostages inside.
“We sorted people out and released the Muslims,” he told Reuters.
Several hours into the incident, Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery told reporters in Garissa that the death toll was at least 147, with 79 wounded, but the siege was almost over. About 500 out of 815 students were accounted for, he said.
He did not specify precisely how many students, staff or security personnel had died but said four Al-Shabab fighters were killed. However, he cautioned that “the operation is ongoing, anything can happen.”
Al-Shabab, who carried out the deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013, claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn raid on the campus in Garissa, a town 200 km from the Somali border.
The group has links to Al-Qaeda and a record of raids on Kenyan soil in retaliation for Nairobi sending troops to fight it in its home state of Somalia.
Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinet said the attackers had “shot indiscriminately” while inside the university compound.
One image provided by a local journalist showed a dozen blood-soaked bodies strewn across a single unversity classroom.
Some students had managed to escape 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.
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.
Police chief Boinet said Kenya had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on four regions near the Somalia border.
Al-Shabab has separated Muslims from Christians in some of its previous raids in Kenya, notably late last year in attacks on a bus and at a quarry.
Its repeated raids, together with attacks on churches by home-grown militant groups, have strained the cordial relations between Kenya’s Muslim and Christian communities.
Having killed more than 200 people in Kenya over the past two years, Al-Shabab has also brought the tourism industry to its knees.
Thursday’s attack undermined a renewed drive by President Uhuru Kenyatta to persuade foreigners the country is now safe to visit.