AP - 04/05/2015 GARISSA, Kenya (AP)
One of the gunmen
who slaughtered 148 people at a college in Kenya was identified Sunday as the
law-school-educated son of a Kenyan government official, underscoring the
inroads Islamic extremists have made in recruiting young people to carry out
attacks against their own country.
Abdirahim
Mohammed Abdullahi, who was killed by security forces Thursday along with the
three other militants who stormed Garissa University College, was the son of a
government chief in Mandera County, which borders Somalia, Interior Ministry
spokesman Mwenda Njoka told The Associated Press.
The chief had
reported his son missing last year and feared he had gone to Somalia, Njoka
said.
Somalia's
al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the bloodbath, saying it
was retribution for Kenya's sending of troops to Somalia to fight the
extremists. The attackers separated Christian students from Muslim ones and
massacred the Christians.
The news that one
of the gunmen was Kenyan highlights the challenges faced by the government in
preventing terrorist attacks. The danger comes not only from neighboring
Somalia but also from within Kenya.
Kenyans make up
the largest number of foreign fighters in al-Shabab, according to experts. Hundreds
of Kenyan youths have trained with al-Shabab and then returned to Kenya, posing
a major security threat, according to former police chief Mathew Iteere.
Kenya's
government has said another source of instability is the country's refugee
camps, with more than 423,000 Somali refugees.
Abdullahi
graduated from the University of Nairobi with a law degree in 2013 and was seen
as a "brilliant upcoming lawyer," according to Njoka.
Njoka said it is
important for parents to inform authorities if their children disappear or seem
to be embracing extremism.
Meanwhile,
questions have been raised about the security response to the Garissa attack.
Police waited
seven hours before sending a special tactical unit into the college to fight
the gunmen, Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reported Sunday.
When the
specially trained police finally went in, it took them only 30 minutes to kill
the four attackers and stop the siege, the paper said.
Army barracks are
just 500 meters (540 yards) from the college, and military officers said they
could handle the attack, said a police officer who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Only after three
soldiers were killed did the army call in the police tactical unit, he said.
Before the
massacre, northeastern Kenya had seen other deadly attacks by al-Shabab against
Christians.
Several hundred
grieving Christians marked Easter Sunday at a Catholic church in Garissa, where
Bishop Joseph Alessandro drew a parallel between the ordeal of Jesus Christ and
that of the stricken town.
"We join the
sufferings of the relatives and the victims with the sufferings of Jesus,"
he told the congregation at Our Lady of Consolation Church. "The victims
will rise again with Christ."
As for
al-Shabab's followers, Alessandro said, "You don't know who they are. They
could be your neighbors."
Security forces
patrolled the perimeter of the church, the site of a grenade attack by
militants three years ago that wounded worshipers.
"We just
keep on praying that God can help us, to comfort us in this difficult
time," said Dominick Odhiambo, a worshipper who said he planned to abandon
his job as a plumber in Garissa and leave for his hometown because he was afraid.
