Kenyan airstrikes hit suspected extremist camps in Somalia

NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenyan warplanes bombed extremist camps in Somalia, officials said Monday, after a vow by President Uhuru Kenyatta to respond "in the fiercest way possible" to a massacre of college students by al-Shabab extremists.

Airstrikes Sunday and Monday targeted the Gedo region of western Somalia, directly across the border from Kenya, said Col. David Obonyo of the Kenyan military.

The camps, which were used to store arms and for logistical support, were destroyed, but it was not possible to determine the number of casualties because of poor visibility, he said.

The Somalia-based extremist group claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack at Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya in which 148 people, most of them students, were killed.

Hawa Yusuf, who lives in a village near the town of Beledhawa that is close to Kenya's border with Somalia, said the warplanes "were hovering around for a few minutes, then started bombing."

Another resident of the village, Ali Hussein, said the airstrikes hit a grassland "where nomads often take their animals for grazing."

"We are not aware of any military camps located there. They dropped bombs on the whole area," he added.

Al-Shabab fighters often use shrubby areas to conceal fighters and vehicles.

Airstrikes and other conventional military operations have hurt al-Shabab, but analysts say better intelligence is needed to thwart an extremist group that has proven effective in infiltrating civilian populations.

The extremist group said the Garissa attack was in reprisal for Kenya's sending troops into Somalia in 2011 to kill its members who took part in cross-border raids and kidnappings.

Kenya's troops in Somalia are part of an African Union force and are also shoring up Somalia's beleaguered government. Kenya has conducted airstrikes in Somalia before.

The four al-Shabab attackers who stormed the university were killed by Kenyan security forces, and their bullet-riddled bodies were displayed in Garissa. Five people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack, a Kenyan official said.

In a nationally televised address over the weekend, Kenyatta vowed that his administration would retaliate against the extremists. "We will fight terrorism to the end," he said.

Kenyatta has been under pressure from the political opposition to deal with the security threat from the Islamic extremists. In December, he finally fired the interior minister, who was ridiculed for a slow response to the Westgate attack, and accepted the resignation of the national police chief.

A leading member of parliament, Aden Duale, said Monday that work must be done to prevent Kenyan youths from becoming followers of extremism.

"Some of our youth have fallen victim to this evil ideology of al-Shabab," he said. "We will embark on an immediate, massive, and sustained campaign to win back the hearts and the minds of our youth within our constituencies and the country as a whole."

He also called for the closure of the Dadaab Refugee Camp, which houses nearly 500,000 who have fled Somalia.

The camp is the center for "the training, the coordination, the assembling of terror networks," Duale alleged, and he urged that the refugees be relocated across the border.

Meanwhile, relatives of the dead converged on a funeral parlor in the capital, Nairobi, on Monday for the painful task of identifying the dead. Some grieved quietly, while others emerged from viewing bodies of lost family members in physical distress, wailing as Red Cross officials escorted and even carried them to tents for counseling.

Four gunmen died in Thursday's attack after security forces entered the campus to stop the slaughter of the students. Survivors said the gunmen targeted Christians and said they would spare Muslims and women, though there were numerous accounts of indiscriminate shooting.

Despite periodic shrieks from weeping, collapsing family members, the scene outside the funeral home was relatively calm as people waited their turn to enter the building or sat quietly outside on plastic chairs.