GARISSA, Kenya — Somali militants vowed on Saturday to wage a long war against Kenya and run its cities “red with blood” after the group's fighters killed nearly 150 people during an assault on a Kenyan university. In the worst bloodshed in Kenya in nearly two decades, four Al-Shabaab gunmen went on a killing spree on Thursday, hunting down and executing students in a campus in Garissa, a northeastern town 200 km from the Somali border. The raid has put Kenya on heightened alert and spooked Christian congregations, who were horrified by survivor testimonies recalling how the militants had sought out Christians to take hostage and kill, while sparing some Muslims. In the message directed at the Kenyan public, the Al-Qaeda aligned group said the raid was retribution for Kenya's military presence in Somalia and mistreatment of Muslims within Kenya. “No amount of precaution or safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath from occurring in your cities,” the group said in an emailed statement received by Reuters in the Somali capital. It said it would run cities “red with blood,” adding: “This will be a long, gruesome war of which you, the Kenyan public, are its first casualties.” The death toll in the Garissa blitz has risen to 148, Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said late on Friday, adding that police were interviewing five suspects after making three additional arrests on Friday. The Kenya Red Cross said it had found a woman survivor on Saturday in the university, two days after the siege ended. The raid on Thursday was the deadliest in the east African nation since 1998, when Al-Qaeda bombed the US embassy in the capital Nairobi and killed more than 200 people. The bloodshed piled further pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has struggled to stop frequent militant gun and grenade attacks that have dented Kenya's image abroad and brought the country's vital tourism industry to its knees. Local media, whose coverage has been uncharacteristically tame due to a new law that forbids them from showing images that would create “fear” among the public, have been skeptical about the government's latest promise to halt the violence. “The usual assurances that security is being beefed up and patrols intensified have become hollow,” the biggest-selling Daily Nation newspaper said in an editorial comment. More than 400 people have been killed by Al-Shabaab on Kenyan soil since Kenyatta took power in April 2013, including 67 people who died in September of that year during a siege on an upmarket shopping mall in the capital Nairobi. Fearful of further attacks, owners of malls in Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa have sought greater government protection and ratcheted up private security. “We are getting more armed police and plain clothes police officers. Everywhere is on heightened alert right now,” said the owner of one high-end Nairobi mall popular with Westerners. Along Kenya's palm-fringed coastline, police have put armed officers in major public buildings. “Officers are everywhere both on the ground and in the air. We have two helicopters that will be patrolling the entire coastal area, especially crowded public places, during Easter and beyond,” Robert Kitur, police chief for Kenya's Indian Ocean coast region, said. — Reuters
