Kenya Avenges Massacre
April 6, 2015
Kenya sent fighter planes into Somalia today to carry out bombing missions at training camps belonging to Islamist jihadists al-Shabab. Both camps were in the Gedo region of Somalia, part of which shares a border with eastern Kenya.
The bombing is seen as a first response to last Thursday’s attack on a Kenyan university. Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, promised to respond to the April 2 attack in “the severest possible way.”
Al-Shabab was formed as a terrorist militant organization in Somalia around 2006. In 2012, the group pledged its allegiance to al Qa’ida. It has launched a number of bombings and attacks in Somalia and neighboring Kenya over the years. Last Thursday, four gunmen from al-Shabab launched a siege that lasted 15 hours at Garissa University College, a school of about 800 students. By the time the attackers were stopped, 148 people from the university were dead, 142 of them students and the others police and security guards. Christian students were targeted in the attack.
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