Al-Shabab gunmen storm university campus in Garissa, eastern Kenya

MASKED gunmen from Somalia’s Shebab Islamist group have massacred at least 147 Kenyan students in a daylong college campus siege, the deadliest attack in the country since US embassy bombings in 1998. 

Terrifying ... Al-Shabab gunmen have seized Christian hostages at a Kenya university near the border with Somalia

Hurling grenades and firing automatic rifles, the gunmen stormed the university in the north-eastern town of Garissa as students were sleeping, shooting dead dozens before setting Muslims free and holding Christians and others hostage.


All four of the gunmen wore suicide vests packed with explosives, detonating themselves in huge blasts as the dramatic assault finally ended after some 16 hours.

Brutal ... paramedics help a woman who was injured during an attack by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab gunmen on the Moi University campus in Garissa. 

 

The government said at least 79 people were wounded in the assault near the lawless border with war-torn Somalia, several seriously, and there are fears the death toll may still rise.

In the final hour before darkness fell, Kenyan troops stormed a student dormitory where the gunmen were holed up as blasts and fierce gunfire rang out. Troops then continued to search the campus for any possible insurgents.

Is is by far the highest death toll in an attack on Kenyan soil by al-Shabab, the Islamic extremist group from neighboring Somalia.

Under attack ... A Kenya Defence Forces soldier secures the area around the Garissa University college after Al-Shabab gunmen attacked.

‘Christians targeted’

The attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab fighters, the same insurgents who carried out the Westgate shopping mall massacre in Nairobi in September 2013, when four gunmen killed at least 67 people in a four-day siege.

Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told AFP the gunmen had taken non-Muslims hostage, and that their mission had been “to kill those who are against the Shebab.”
About half of the university’s students are believed to have been Christian.

It was not clear if any of the students the Shebab said they had held were alive at the time of the final assault by troops. However, officials said over 500 students had been accounted for.
Most of those killed were students but two police officers, one soldier and two watchmen are among the dead.

“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.
Soldiers with tanks were deployed around the campus.

Wounded ... a victim of the attack on a Kenyan university, arrives at the Kenyatta hospital.

 

The university is near the lawless border with war-torn Somalia. The sprawling campus on the outskirts of town has both teaching areas as well as residential blocks.
“We are mopping up the area,” Interior Minister Joseph Nkaiserry told reporters.
Kenya’s national disaster operations centre has since said the siege had “ended with all four terrorists killed”.

It is the worst attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi by Al-Qaeda, when 213 people were killed by a huge truck bomb.

Emergency service ... A paramedic holds his hand out as he helps a student who was injured during an attack by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab gunmen on Garissa University campus. Source: AFP 

’Strapped with explosives’

Kenya’s interior minister says the four Islamic extremist gunmen who attacked a college campus had strapped themselves with explosives.
Joseph Nkaissery said when Kenyan officers shot at the four, the attackers exploded “like bombs.” He said shrapnel from the explosions injured officers.

“The terrorists, 90 per cent of the threat has been eliminated ... we have been able to confirm that four terrorists have been killed,” Mr Nkaiserry added, saying that troops were scouring the campus as the total number of gunmen was not known, but that the main operation was over.