Al-Shabaab Kills 147 in Kenyan Varsity

Horror was on Thursday un­leashed by four al-Shabab Islamic militants at the Garissa Universi­ty in Kenya, resulting in the death of 147 persons.

By the evening, state officials disclosed that operation to secure the university campus was over, with all four attackers killed.

In the United States, two wom­en were arrested over an alleged terror plot.

An overnight curfew was im­posed in four counties near the Kenya-Somalia border- Garissa, Wajir, Mandera and Tana River, disaster management officials said.

At least 79 persons were injured while more than 500 students were rescued from the Garissa University campus,.

About four masked gunmen stormed the university early on Thursday morning, shooting ran­domly.

Kenyan Interior Minister, Jo­seph Nkaiserry, said Thursday that “90% of the threat [had] been eliminated”, adding that secu­rity forces were “mopping up the area” in case more gunmen were on the campus.

Meanwhile, President Good­luck Jonathan has condemned the al-Shabab[MS1] attack on the Garissa University College in Ke­nya.

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A statement issued on Thurs­day by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, said Jonathan extended heartfelt condolences to the gov­ernment and people of Kenya and to families of those who died in the attack.

Jonathan condemned the de­liberate targeting of innocent persons, schools and other soft targets by terrorists as such atro­cious, despicable and barbaric acts of violence which ought to have no place in any civilized society.

He assured President Uhuru Kenyatta and the people of Kenya that Nigeria stands in full soli­darity with them as they come to

grips once again with the after math of another heinous terror­ist attack on their country.­

The President affirmed that Nigeria would continue to work with Kenya, other African coun­tries and the international com­munity to rid the world of all ter­rorist groups.

Jonathan believes that the attack on the Kenyan Univer­sity and other similar atrocities across the world must strengthen and solidify the resolve of the global community to take more urgent and coordinated actions to speedily defeat the agents of global terror.

Also, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, on Thursday, con­demned what he called a “terror­ist attack” and said the UN was ready to help Kenya “prevent and counter terrorism and violent ex­tremism”.

The Kenyan government ear­lier named Mohamed Kuno, a high-ranking al-Shabab official, as the mastermind of the attack. It placed a bounty of $217,000 (£140,000) on him.

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A BBC Somali Service reporter said Mohamed Kuno was head­master at an Islamic school in Garissa before he quit in 2007. He goes by the nickname “Duly­adeyn”, which means “ambidex­trous” in Somali.

Earlier, al-Shabab told the BBC its members were holding Chris­tians hostage and freeing Mus­lims.

The gunmen reportedly or­dered students to lie down on the floor, but some of them escaped.

Student Augustine Alanga told the BBC’s Newsday programme: “It was horrible, there was shoot­ing everywhere.”

He said it was “pathetic” that the university was only guarded by two police officers.

A student, Collins Wetangula, said when the gunmen entered his hostel he could hear them opening doors and asking if the people inside were Muslims or Christians, the AP news agency reported.

“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.

Al-Shabab said it attacked the university because it is at war with Kenya.

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Meanwhile, two New York City women have been arrested in an alleged conspiracy to build a bomb and wage a “terrorist attack” in the United States, according to a federal criminal complaint made public on Thursday.

Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, devised a plot to target police, government or military tar­gets based on their “violent jihad­ist beliefs,” according to the com­plaint filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

The two women, who were roommates in the city borough of Queens, researched how to build an explosive device and plotted to attack a military base or police fu­neral, it stated.

Charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property in the United States, they were slated to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Viktor Pohorelsky on Thurs­day afternoon.

If convicted, they face the possi­bility of life in prison.

Velentzas praised al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, considered former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden a hero and said she and Siddiqui were “citi­zens of the Islamic State,” the com­plaint said.

The women also voiced support for beheadings of Western journal­ists and others by Islamic State, the militant group that controls ter­ritory in Syria and Iraq, the com­plaint said.

Since last summer, they read textbooks on electricity, watched online videos about soldering and read “The Anarchist Cookbook,” a book with instructions on building homemade explosives, it said.

They looked for supplies such as wiring and chemicals in a pharma­cy and a Home Depot store, it said.