Kenya pushes back with airstrikes and bigger bounty

NAIROBI • The Kenyan air force has bombed two al-Shabab camps in Somalia, a defence force source said on Monday, in the first major military response to last week’s attack by the militant group on a Kenyan university.

Gunmen from the al-Qaida-aligned group killed 148 people Thursday when they stormed the Garissa University College campus, 200 kilometres from the Somali border.

The Somali-based hardline Islamists have killed more than 400 people in Kenya in the last two years, including 67 people at the Westgate shopping mall in 2013.

Jets pounded the camps in Gondodowe and Ismail, both in the Gedo region bordering Kenya, Sunday, the Kenyan Defence Forces source said. Cloud cover made it difficult to establish how much damage the bombings caused or estimate the death toll.

“We targeted the two areas because according to information we have, those [al-Shabab] fellows are coming from there to attack Kenya,” he said.

The bombings come after the government placed a US$215,000 bounty on wanted terrorist Mohamed Mohamud, alias Dulyadin alias Gamadhere, who is accused of masterminding the Garissa university attack.

Intelligence reports show Mr. Gamadhere, who is believed to be in Somalia, is a former teacher at a ma- drassa in northern Kenya.

“The bounty on him has been revised to 20 million Kenyan shillings [$270,000] because he is believed to be the mastermind of this attack,” a security source said. Mr. Gamadhere was already wanted for last year’s attacks in northern Kenya, with a US$20,000 bounty.

Kenya has struggled to stop the flow of al-Shabab fighters and weapons across its 700-km border with Somalia.

The violence has also damaged Kenya’s economy by scaring away tourists and investors.

Hoteliers from Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast region and sprawling game park reserves said tourists have started cancelling trips to the east African nation after the 148 murders.

“We were expecting tourists from U.K., Germany, France, Australia and Asia continent, but they cancelled their bookings when they learned of the terror attack,” said Peter Kipeno, the owner of a luxury tented camp in Kenya’s Maasai Mara game park.

In the capital Nairobi, where local media have become increasingly critical of what they call a bungled security response to the Garissa attack, dozens of grieving families are still trying to identify bodies at the city’s mortuary.

“[The security services] waited too long and the terrorists had so much time to kill our kids,” said Isaac Mutisya, whose 23-year-old daughter Risper Mutindi Kasyoka, is among the dead.