Nairobi - Kenyans prepared to march for greater national security on Tuesday following last week's massacre by Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamists, ahead of a candlelit vigil on the final day of mourning for the 148 people killed by the militants.
Kenyan fighter jets pounded camps belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked
insurgents in southern Somalia on Monday, but anger has been growing over
allegations that critical intelligence warnings were missed.
Special forces units took seven hours to reach the university
in Garissa last Thursday, some 365km from the capital, as al-Shabaab gunmen
stormed dormitory buildings before lining up non-Muslim students for execution
in what President Uhuru Kenyatta described as a "barbaric medieval
slaughter".
The massacre, Kenya's deadliest attack since the 1998
bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, claimed the lives of 142 students, three
police officers and three soldiers.
Air strikes
Tuesday's demonstration was due to begin at 10:00 (07:00
GMT) in Nairobi as security forces continued their hunt for those behind the
university killings, with the vigil planned for later in the afternoon on the
third and final day of national mourning.
The army said Monday's airstrikes destroyed two
Islamist bases, and followed a promise by Kenyatta that he would retaliate
"in the severest way possible" against the al-Shabaab militants for
their attack last Thursday.
"We bombed two al-Shabaab camps in the Gedo
region," Kenyan army spokesperson David Obonyo told AFP, without giving
details about any possible casualties in the lawless Somali area bordering
Kenya.
Kenyan airplanes have made repeated strikes in
southern Somalia since sending troops into their war-torn neighbour in 2011 to
attack al-Shabaab bases, with Nairobi later joining the African Union force
fighting the Islamists.
"The bombings are part of the continued process
and engagement against al-Shabaab, which will go on," Obonyo added.
The al-Shabaab fled their power base in Somalia's
capital Mogadishu in 2011, and continue to battle the AU force, AMISOM, sent to
drive them out. It includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and
Uganda.
The al-Shabaab group has carried out a string of
revenge attacks in neighbouring countries, notably Kenya and Uganda, in response
to their participation in the AU force.
Warning of ‘another bloodbath’
On Saturday, al-Shabaab warned of "another
bloodbath" unless Kenya withdraws its troops from Somalia, and threatened
a "long, gruesome war".
Al-Shabaab fighters also carried out the Westgate
shopping mall attack in Nairobi in September 2013, a four-day siege which left
at least 67 people dead.
Five men have been arrested in connection with the
university attack, including three alleged "co-ordinators" captured
as they fled towards Somalia, and two others seized in the university compound.
The two arrested on campus included a security guard
and a Tanzanian found "hiding in the ceiling" and holding grenades,
the interior ministry said.
A $215 000 bounty has also been offered for alleged al-Shabaab
commander Mohamed Mohamud, a former Kenyan teacher said to be the mastermind
behind the attack and believed to now be in Somalia.
Authorities on Sunday named one of the four gunmen
killed as a fellow Kenyan, highlighting the al-Shabaab's ability to recruit
within the country.
Interior ministry spokesperson Mwenda Njoka said
high-flying Abdirahim Abdullahi, an ethnic Somali, was a university law
graduate described by those who knew him as an A-grade student and "a
brilliant upcoming lawyer".
The spokesperson said Abdullahi's father, a local
official in the northeastern county of Mandera, had "reported to the
authorities that his son had gone missing and suspected the boy had gone to
Somalia".
Abattoir-like stench
Forensic investigators aided by foreign experts have
continued to scour the site, where an AFP reporter on Monday was among the
first journalists to enter since the attack, describing bullet-scarred
buildings, blood stains on the floors, and an abattoir-like stench across the
campus.
Scores of family members of those killed continue an
agonising wait for the remains of their loved ones at the main mortuary in
Nairobi.
Although Kenyatta has vowed to retaliate for the
massacre, there have also been calls for national unity.
In an address to the nation on Saturday, Kenyatta said
people's "justified anger" should not lead to "the victimisation
of anyone" - a clear reference to Kenya's large Muslim and Somali
minorities in a country where 80% of the population is Christian.
