Kenyan planes bomb al-Shabaab camps

NAIROBI – Kenyan fighter jets yesterday bombed two camps of the al-Qaeda-linked alShabaab insurgents in southern Somalia, the army said, days after the Islamists carried out their worst ever massacre in Kenya.

“We bombed two al-Shabaab camps in the Gedo region,” Kenyan army spokesman David Obonyo said.

“The two targets were hit and taken out, the two camps are destroyed.”

The air strikes follow threats by President Uhuru Kenyatta that he would retaliate “in the severest way possible ” against the alShabaab militants for their attack on Thursday on a university in Kenya ’ s northeastern town of Garissa in which nearly 150 died.

There was no information given as to casualties in the bases hit. The al-Shabaab gunmen launched the pre-dawn attack in Garissa, storming dormitory buildings before lining up non-Muslim students for execution in what Kenyatta described as a “barbaric medieval slaughter ”.

Kenyan airplanes have made repeated strikes in southern Somalia since its troops crossed into its war-torn neighbour in 2011 to attack al-Shabaab bases, with Nairobi later joining the African Union (AU) force fighting the Islamists.

“The bombings are part of the continued process and engagement against al-Shabaab, which will go on,” Obonyo said.

Al-Shabaab fled its power base in Somalia ’ s capital Mogadishu in 2011 and continue to battle the AU force, AMISOM, sent to drive them out and that includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.