In the early morning hours of April 2, a team of gunmen attacked the Garissa University College in Garissa, Kenya, killing some 147 students and wounding many more. The gunmen reportedly targeted a Christian religious service before proceeding to the College's dormitories.
Authorities responded to the scene and reportedly cornered the attackers in one of the dormitory buildings, and claim to have killed four of them. Reports on the number of gunmen involved in the attack vary with some sources claiming as many as 10, so it is possible some of the attackers escaped. The Somali jihadist group al Shabaab has claimed credit for the attack. Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta called 10,000 police recruits to report for duty and has deployed tanks and armored vehicles in Garissa.
Al Shabaab has a long history of conducting attacks against soft targets in Kenya, most notably the September 2013 armed assault at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. The militant organization also conducted several attacks in Garissa from 2012 onward, including grenade attacks and armed assaults. Their objectives have included restaurants, churches and hotels as well as the assassination of soldiers and police officers. Garissa is just over 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the border with Somalia and there is a large Somali refugee presence in the area.
Al Shabaab has been weakened in recent years by an international coalition opposing it in Somalia. Many of the group's senior leaders have been killed or surrendered to the government under an amnesty plan. A major participant in the coalition is the Kenyan army, and al Shabaab has repeatedly threatened to conduct attacks in retribution for Kenya's leading role.
While al Shabaab has lost control of most of its territory, it has switched from conventional warfare operations to insurgent and terrorist tactics, which require fewer resources. Al Shabaab recently conducted a string of armed assaults in Mogadishu, and the Garissa attack shows that the group still possesses the capability to conduct raids against soft targets inside Kenya. It is noteworthy that this attack was not attempted in the more heavily secured and more distant capital.
Reports noted that the gunmen reportedly released Muslim students while killing Christian students, in keeping with al Shabaab's long-standing policy of attempting to minimize innocent Muslim casualties. Al Shabaab will obviously kill Muslim soldiers and police officers, but considers it wrong to kill Muslim civilians. This policy is in direct contradiction with the actions of the Islamic State and seems to indicate that despite rumors of some al Shabaab members being drawn away from al Qaeda and toward the Islamic State, the group still maintains its prior targeting doctrine.
