John Bacon, USA TODAY
The Kenyan military says it launched air strikes against Islamic militants in Somalia following an extremist attack on a Kenyan college that killed 148 people. Wochit
Kenyan jets blasted two Islamic militant camps across the border in Somalia on Monday in retaliation for the terror attack last week that killed 148 people and left Kenya enveloped in shock, pain and mourning.
The Somalia-based al-Shabab militant group has taken responsibility for the attack Thursday at Garissa University College. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had threatened to retaliate "in the severest way possible" against the al-Qaeda-linked militants for Thursday's attack.
"We bombed two Shabab camps in the Gedo region," Kenyan army spokesman David Obonyo told AFP. "The two targets were hit and taken out. The two camps are destroyed.
"The bombings are part of the continued process, and engagement against Al-Shabab, which will go on,"
No casualty reports related to the airstrikes were immediately released. Ali Hussein, a resident of Gabdon, a village near the Somali border, said the airstrikes appeared to strike grassland used by nomads to graze their animals.
"We are not aware of any military camps located there," he told the Associated Press.
The Kenyan government claims Abdirahim Abdullahi, the son of a local official, orchestrated the terrorist attack that killed 147 people Thursday. Video provided by Newsy Newslook
Across Kenya, somber friends and relatives continued the arduous task of identifying the often mangled bodies of victims of Thursday's attack. Beatrice Musungu was overcome with grief and anger when she saw the body of her cousin, university student Oliver Maina, in a mortuary.
"These people are inhuman," she told The Standard. "They destroyed life that they did not create. My cousin was humble. I cannot believe that terrorists have taken away the life of such a humble soul."
Survivors of the Garissa attack said the four gunmen lined up non-Muslims and executed them. The siege ended when security forces stormed the school, near the Somali border, and killed the gunmen.
Kenya is a Christian-dominated nation of 45 million people. The vast majority of war-torn Somalia's 10 million people are Muslim.
Al-Shabab said the attack was a reprisal for Kenyan efforts to put down the Islamic insurgency in Somalia. Al-Shabab leaders have warned of a "long, gruesome war" unless Kenya withdrew its troops from Somalia.
Kenya has repeatedly struck militant bases in southern Somalia since 2011. Kenya also has joined the African Union force fighting the insurgency. On Monday, Garissa Township officials and National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale called for closure of Somali refugee camps in Kenya, saying they were being used to plan attacks against Kenyans.
More than 300,000 Somalis live in the camps, which Duale told the Daily Nation have become centers for assembling and training terror networks. Duale said the United Nations refugee agency can relocate the camps across the border.
The government also is offering a $220,00 reward for the capture of Mohamed Mohamud, also known as Gamadhere, accused of masterminding the Garissa attack. Gamadhere, a Somalian, is a former teacher at an Islamic religious school — called madrassas — in Northern Kenya.
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