Tag: al shabab
Kenya University Attack: At Least 147 Killed By al-Shabab Gunmen

Kenya University Attack: At Least 147 Killed By al-Shabab Gunmen

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

ABUJA, Nigeria — At least 147 people were killed after Somali militant group al-Shabab attacked a university in northeastern Kenya, the country’s Interior Ministry said as it announced that the fighting had ended.

All four attackers had also been killed, the ministry said. It was not immediately clear whether they included a suspect earlier reported captured or if that report had been inaccurate.

Scores of people were wounded and 500 had been accounted for, according to the Kenya National Disaster Operation Center. The university normally has about 815 students in residence.

Amref Health Africa, a Kenyan health organization that was one of the first responders on the scene, said in a statement that 25 bodies had been removed from one classroom after the attack on Garissa University College.

Nine critically injured victims of the attack had been airlifted to Nairobi for treatment, according to the Kenya National Disaster Operation Center.

Al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Authorities named the terrorist commander behind the attack as ethnic Somali Mohammed Mohamud, who also goes by the names Dulyadin and Gamadheere. The Interior Ministry released a photograph of Mohamud and offered a $220,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. Authorities had placed a $55,000 bounty on his head in December.

Al-Shabab said in a statement that the university was on Muslim land and was there to promulgate “missionary activities and to spread deviant ideology.”

The attack comes less than a week after an al-Shabab attack on a hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which killed 24 people.

Thursday’s attack began about 5:30 a.m. when gunmen stormed the campus as some Muslim students were rising for morning prayers.

Students fled in terror as the attackers sprayed the campus with gunfire. The sounds of heavy gunfire rang out as the day wore on, with reports that al-Shabab gunmen had taken positions on the roof, firing at security forces and anyone who tried to escape.

Interior Minister Joseph Nkiassey said an operations center had been established to coordinate the multiagency response to the attack that included both the military and police. Tanks were deployed.

According to the Reuters news agency, an al-Shabab spokesman, Sheik Abdiasis Abu Musab, said the group spared Muslim students — a hallmark in previous al-Shabab attacks that singled out Christians. The approach differentiates the group from Islamic State affiliates in Africa such as Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram.

He claimed there were many dead and that the attackers at one point were holding many Christian students hostage.

Eyewitnesses described terrifying scenes as the gunmen attacked at dawn.

“All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots — nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are,” student Collins Wetangula told The Associated Press. He said that he and others locked themselves in their room, but gunmen came, looking for Christian students.

“If you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot. With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die,” he said.

He said he and other students were saved when the Kenyan military arrived, driving the gunmen away and leading him and about 20 others to safety.

University staff said they tried to contact students inside the campus by phone but had been unable to do so, according to local media.

The attack comes days after warnings of a possible terrorist attack in Kenya. The British and Australian governments drew harsh criticism from the Kenyan government after Australia warned of possible terrorist attacks in Nairobi, and Britain warned its citizens to avoid travel to most coastal and northern areas.

Some critics said security at the university was inadequate, given previous attacks by al-Shabab in northern Kenya.

Police spokesman Joseph Boinnet said the officers on duty engaged the attackers in a fierce gun battle but that the gunmen managed to gain access to the campus.

“The attackers shot indiscriminately while inside the university compound,” Boinnet said in a statement. “Police officers who were on duty 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.”

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the nation on television after the attack, announcing that he would send an extra 10,000 police recruits for training to increase security.

“We have suffered unnecessarily due to a shortage of security personnel. Kenya badly needs additional officers, and I will not keep the nation waiting,” the president said, offering condolences to families of the dead. He offered no additional information about the number of victims except to say that several people were killed or wounded and that others were taken hostage.

“I also assure the nation that my government has undertaken appropriate deployment to the affected area, and is fully seized of the situation,” he said. “I also urge Kenyans to stay calm as we resolve this matter, and to provide the authorities with any information they may have in connection with any threats to our security.

Al-Shabab, which is able to cross Kenya’s notoriously porous border at will, has carried out several horrifying attacks since late last year, including the massacres of 28 bus passengers and 36 quarry workers.

Last year was the deadliest since 2011 — when Kenya began its military intervention in Somalia — with more than 90 people killed in terrorist attacks near Lamu on the coast by al-Shabab or related Kenyan groups.

Al-Shabab has suffered recent setbacks in Somalia, with the killings of its secretive commander, Ahmed Abdi Godane, and other top figures in recent U.S. airstrikes. But it remains capable of carrying out devastating terrorist attacks, often using a handful of gunmen.

Its most notorious attack in Kenya was in 2013, when four gunmen killed 67 people at the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.

Photo: Uhuru Kenyatta via Flickr

Somali Terror Group Kills At Least A Dozen In Bombings

Somali Terror Group Kills At Least A Dozen In Bombings

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

JOHANNESBURG — Somali terror group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for two suicide car bombings that killed at least a dozen civilians Monday south of the capital city of Mogadishu, the first attack since the group’s leader was killed a week earlier by a U.S. airstrike.

Dozens more were wounded in the explosions, including soldiers from the African Union force, AMISOM, which is fighting al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab to protect Somalia’s fragile government.
News agencies were reporting anywhere between 12 and 24 people killed, many of them passengers in a civilian commuter minibus.

The twin bombings, an hour apart on the same road south of Mogadishu, both targeted AMISOM personnel.

“We are behind the two car bombs driven by mujahedeen,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, head of al-Shabab’s military operations, told Reuters. Al-Shabab claimed four Americans and one South American were killed in the attack, Reuters reported, however the claim couldn’t be verified.

A regional governor, Adukadir Mohammed Sidi, who was reportedly being escorted by the convoy, told news agencies that 12 people in the minibus were killed in the first blast.

Al-Shabab’s future is unclear after the death of its leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, who took power in 2008, and lately had many rival commanders killed. Godane died in a U.S. airstrike Sept. 1.
Godane’s successor was chosen swiftly, amid speculation that his death could lead to a power struggle within the organization. This weekend, al-Shabab warned of attacks to avenge Godane’s killing.

New leader Abu Ubeid Ahmed Omar, also known as Ahmed Umar Diriye, comes from a small circle of close Godane loyalists, and is a former al-Shabab regional leader in southern Somalia. Stig Jarle Hansen, author of a 2013 book on al-Shabab said the new leader “has a reputation for being efficient. He is a safe choice, well-respected in al-Shabab.”

Hansen said it was rumored Godane appointed his successor through a last will, made before his death.

“The speed was surprisingly swift and impressive. I think this was an attempt to avoid a leadership wrangle that would have been serious for the organization,” he said.

However Hansen said it wasn’t immediately clear whether subcommanders from other regions would accept the choice.

The attack Monday came as Human Rights Watch released a report on sexual abuse of Somalia civilians by AMISOM soldiers, documenting the cases of 21 women and girls who claim to have been raped or sexually exploited by Burundian and Ugandan soldiers when they approached an AMISOM base seeking medical help or food. One case involved a 12-year-old girl.

AFP Photo

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Pentagon Confirms Militant Al-Shabab Leader Killed In Somalia Airstrike

Pentagon Confirms Militant Al-Shabab Leader Killed In Somalia Airstrike

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon confirmed Friday that Ahmed Abdi Godane, the leader of Somalia’s al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab militants, was killed in a U.S. airstrike that took place early this week.

Godane, 37, was killed Monday after a special-forces strike hit a militant encampment in a town south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, officials said. The mission illustrated the Pentagon’s determination to take down al-Shabab members responsible for a wave of bombings and suicide attacks throughout the Horn of Africa.

Both manned and unmanned aircraft were used in the attack, which included several Hellfire missiles and laser-guided munitions, officials said. The assault is seen by U.S. officials as a setback for the Islamic militant group, which has struggled in recent years with leadership disputes, military defeats and questions about its direction.

“Removing Godane from the battlefield is a major symbolic and operational loss to Al Shabab,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement. “The United States works in coordination with its friends, allies and partners to counter the regional and global threats posed by violent extremist organizations.”

Godane, who took over al-Shabab in 2008, was on the U.S. list of most-wanted militants, with a $7 million bounty on his head. The Pentagon’s action reflects the seriousness with which U.S. officials view the threat posed by the group.

Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for several attacks along Kenya’s coast that have killed dozens of people. It carried out last year’s attack on the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi that left about 70 people dead and 200 injured. The group also has carried out suicide attacks in Mogadishu and in central and northern Somalia, typically targeting allies of Somalia’s federal government.

Under Godane’s guidance, the group carried out killings, amputations and other violence, alienating some Somalis. When famine struck the country in 2011, al-Shabab blocked humanitarian aid, intensifying doubt within the group about Godane’s leadership style.
Al-Shabab, which controls a large swath of rural Somalia, has been trying to regain power since being driven out of Mogadishu and the port city of Kismayo by African Union troops in 2011 and 2012.

Godane, highly ambitious but seen as remote from his followers, was a veteran of militant training in Afghanistan who reportedly enjoyed penning poetry. He was rarely photographed, but released occasional audio statements in a droning, pious tone.

He pledged allegiance to al-Qaida in 2009, but was initially snubbed by Osama bin Laden. After the al-Qaida leader’s death in May 2011, the two terrorist groups affiliated early last year. The alliance triggered internal struggles over al-Shabab’s direction and leadership.

Al-Shabab has not yet named Godane’s successor.

AFP Photo/Tobin Jones

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Al Shabab Claims Responsibility For Killing 29 In Kenyan Coastal Towns

Al Shabab Claims Responsibility For Killing 29 In Kenyan Coastal Towns

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

JOHANNESBURG — Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, on Sunday gave police and security officials 48 hours to hunt down extremists who killed 29 people in separate attacks on two Kenyan towns near the eastern coast.

The Somali militant group Al Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the civilians in Hindi and on a police station in nearby Gamba.

The attacks followed assaults last month on the town of Mpeketoni and other villages, in which dozens of people died. Al Shabab also claimed it carried out those attacks, but Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta dismissed the claim, and blamed local political networks.

The spate of attacks near the tourist resort of Lamu has sent Kenya’s tourist industry into sharp decline and underscored the faltering efforts of security forces to restore security, protect the population, and prevent terror attacks.

The attacks have also deepened religious and ethnic mistrust in a nation still deeply divided after ethnic violence around the disputed 2007 elections.

Several dozen gunmen attacked the Gamba police station late Saturday, shooting a police officer, five non-Muslim prisoners, and three occupants of a truck, before freeing several suspects arrested for last month’s attacks, police Deputy Inspector General Grace Kaindi said Sunday.

At around the same time, gunmen attacked Hindi, shooting men and boys indiscriminately and burning a church, houses, and government buildings.

Kaindi said there had been a warning there would be an attack somewhere on the coast but there had been no intelligence about its location. She said Saturday’s attacks were carried out not by Al Shabab, but rather a local separatist group, the Muslim Republican Council, which has been campaigning for independence for Kenya’s coastal region, angered by government programs in decades past to resettle people from other regions.

“For now we believe the attackers were MRC and it revolves around local issues including politics and land,” Kaindi told a news conference.

An MRC leader, Randu Nzai Ruwa, in comments to the Reuters news agency, denied the group was responsible for Saturday’s attacks.

A blackboard removed from a school and left by the attackers near a crossroads said the assaults were retaliation for Kenya’s military presence in Somalia, where it is part of an African Union force fighting Al Shabab. The scrawled chalk message said the attackers aimed to drive Christians out of Kenya’s coastal region.

“You invade Muslim country, and you want to stay in peace,” one scrawled message said. Another called on Muslims in the coastal area to rise up and force Christians to leave, while another simply said, “Uhuru down.”

Ruto, the deputy president, visited the scenes of both attacks, which took place Saturday night.

“We want to warn those people trying to make Kenya ungovernable that they will not succeed,” Ruto said Sunday in the town of Hindi, site of one of the attacks.

“It is impossible in the independent Kenya to have criminals and terrorists coming and killing innocent people,” he added. “We have given instructions to security officers to ensure the criminals are brought to book alive or dead.”

AFP Photo

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