Kenya launched airstrikes against Islamic militants in Somalia following an extremist attack on a Kenyan college that killed 148 people, a military spokesman said Monday.

Warplanes attacked positions of the al-Shabab militant group Sunday afternoon and early Monday morning, said Col. David Obonyo of the Kenyan military.

Al-Shabab, which is based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the college attack Thursday in the Kenyan town of Garissa. Four gunmen died in the assault.

The airstrikes occurred in the Gedo region of Somalia, Obonyo said.

“This is part of continuing operations, not just in response to Garissa,” he said.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had vowed harsh measures against al-Shabab following the slaughter at Garissa, which is near the border with Somalia. Kenya has troops in Somalia as part of an African Union force to attack al-Shabab and shore up the beleaguered Somali government. Kenya has carried out air strikes before.

Al-Shabab said it attacked students at Garissa College University as a reprisal for Kenya sending troops into Somalia.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta warned Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked Shebab fighters his government will respond to their killing of almost 150 students in the “severest way” possible.

Condemning the “barbaric medieval slaughter” in his first address since the attack ended on Thursday, the bloodiest assault by the Shebab militants, Kenyatta declared three days of national mourning.

“My administration shall respond in the severest way possible to the attack and any other attack to us,” Kenyatta said, in a televised national address from the capital Nairobi.

“Thursday wounded Kenya, Thursday wounded families, friends and communities of the victims of the attack.”

The day-long seige on Garissa University, situated near the border with Somalia, claimed 148 lives, including 142 students, three police officers and three soldiers.

The massacre was Kenya’s deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi.

Kenyatta’s speech, two days after the attack ended, came hours after the militants vowed more strikes against Kenya, in revenge for Nairobi’s sending troops into southern Somalia in 2011. Kenya is now fighting alongside the African Union force battling the Shebab.

“We will… stop at nothing to avenge the deaths of our Muslim brothers until your government ceases its oppression and until all Muslim lands are liberated from Kenyan occupation,” the Shebab said in a statement released on Saturday.

“Until then, Kenyan cities will run red with blood… this will be a long, gruesome war of which you, the Kenyan public, are its first casualties.”

Kenyatta however dismissed the threats.

“Despite adversity, we have been — and always will be — unbowed and we shall continue to build a strong prosperous and secure nation,” he said.

“That is the greatest testament we can offer to those precious departed we have lost.”

But Kenyatta also warned that the terrorist masterminds were inside Kenya, not Somalia.

“The planners and financiers of this brutality are deeply embedded in our communities”, he said, warning that “radicalisation is happening openly” in Islamic Madrassa schools by “rogue” preachers.

“We will not allow them to continue their lives as normal, the full force of the law will be brought to bear with even greater intensity that has been the case in previous years,” he added.

Police on Saturday paraded the naked corpses of Somali al-Qaeda-linked Shebab gunmen who slaughtered almost 150 people in one of Kenya’s worst massacres, hours after the militants threatened “another bloodbath”.

Five men have been arrested in connection with Thursday’s attack, where the gunmen staged a one-day seige at the university in the northeastern town of Garissa.

Earlier on Saturday, the Shebab warned of a “long, gruesome war” unless Kenya withdrew its troops from Somalia. Meanwhile, President Uhuru Kenyatta declared three days of national mourning.

Hours after Shebab’s warning, police paraded four corpses piled on top of each other face down in the back of a pick up truck followed by a huge crowd, saying the grim display was to see if anyone could identify the assailants.

But some threw stones at the bodies as they passed, others jeered and shouted at the dead.

Meanwhile forensic investigators continued to scour the site where one student shocked security forces — who had said all students were accounted for — by emerging unharmed from a wardrobe where she had hidden for over two days.

A Kenya Red Cross spokeswoman said that the 19-year old was traumatised and dehydrated but physically unharmed and undergoing assessment by doctors.

Thursday’s attack on Garissa University, situated near the border with Somalia, claimed 148 lives, including 142 students, three police officers and three soldiers.

“Those children were our future, so part of our future has been destroyed,” Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said on Friday.

Over 600 students from the now closed college on Saturday boarded buses for the home towns around the country.

The massacre was Kenya’s deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and the bloodiest ever assault by the Shebab militants.

Interior ministry spokesman, Mwenda Njoka, said five arrests had already been made, including three “coordinators” captured as they fled towards Somalia, and two others in the university.

The name of the three suspected organisers were not given, but Njoka said the two arrested on campus included a security guard at the university, and a Tanzanian named as Rashid Charles Mberesero.

“He was hiding in the ceiling of the university and had grenades,” Njoka said, while the guard, a Kenyan of ethnic Somali origin, was named as Osman Ali Dagane.

He is suspected of helping the gunmen, and was found “in possession of Jihadist materials,” Njoka added.

All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO) has described as misleading and unfounded the rumour making the rounds that the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, has pledged to end the scourge of Boko Haram insurgency in the country within two months, wrote Sun News.

The APCPCO, in a statement signed by its Director of Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said Buhari would end the insurgency.

His words: “His Excellency, the president-elect is still waiting to be sworn in on May 29. After the ceremony, he would need time to study the security situation and plan strategically with the security chiefs as to the way forward. Time is of essence here.

Therefore, President Buhari did not and would not peg the decimation of terrorism within the country’s territory to just two months.

“The general was unequivocal about cleansing Boko Haram from our land; he would do a good job of it by giving a final permanent push to rid Nigeria of unscrupulous elements.

“The President-elect said much to the world media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Cable News Network (CNN). He never put a time-frame to when he would eliminate terrorists, and it would be unfair and mischievous for anyone to ascribe to him what he did not say.”

Al Shabaab gunmen on Thursday seized Christian hostages at a Kenya university near the border with Somalia, in an pre-dawn attack that killed at least 15 people and wounded scores more, wrote ToI.

A spokesman for Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked Shabaab, told AFP the group was behind the early morning assault on the university in Garissa and had taken non-Muslims hostage.

“When our men arrived, they released the Muslims. We are holding others hostage,” said Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, without giving numbers.

He said those seized were Christians and added that “our people are still there, they are fighting and their mission is to kill those who are against the Shabaab.”

“Kenya is at war with Somalia,” Rage said, referring to the thousands of Kenyan troops in Somalia as part of an African Union military mission.

Gunfire could still be heard sporadically six hours after the attack began, as Kenya’s interior ministry said the “attackers have been cornered in one hostel.”

Kenya’s interior ministry also said “one suspected terrorist” had been arrested attempting “to flee scene”.

At least 15 people have been killed, according to a police source and media reports, while Kenya’s official National Disaster Operation Centre said a further 65 had been injured, many suffering from gunshot wounds.

The Kenya Red Cross, which is leading the medical response to the attack, said there were “an unknown number of student hostages” and that “50 students have been safely freed”.

Rage did not give details of casualties but said “there are very many.”

The town of Garissa is around 150 kilometres (90 miles) west of Somalia and has in the past been targeted by militants from the Shabaab.

“Gunmen forced their way into Garissa University by shooting at the guards manning the main gate at around 5:30 am,” said Kenya Police Chief Joseph Boinet. “The gunmen shot indiscriminately while inside the university compound.”

The sprawling campus, on the outskirts of the garrison town, has both teaching areas as well as residential blocks.

The university has several hundred students from different parts of Kenya. The number of teachers and students trapped inside the campus was unclear as gunfire and explosions were heard coming from the site.

“Police… engaged the gunmen in a fierce shootout, however the attackers retreated and gained entry into one of the hostels,” Boinet said, adding that reinforcements had arrived and were “flushing out the gunmen.”

A witness, Ahmed Nur, said he saw the bodies of two university guards, shot by the attackers.

Kenya Red Cross, quoting local health officials, said that 30 people had been taken to hospital, “the majority” with gunshot wounds.

Kenya has been hit by a wave of grenade and gun attacks, often blamed on sympathisers of Somalia’s Shabaab Islamist fighters and sometimes aimed at police targets, since the army crossed into southern Somalia in 2011 to attack Islamist bases.

A series of foreign travel warnings in response to the threat have crippled Kenya’s economically important tourism industry. On Wednesday, just hours before the attack in Garissa began, President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenya “is safe as any country in the world”.

Kenya’s government has been under fire since the September 2013 Shabaab attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, in which at least 67 people were killed in a siege involving just four gunmen and which lasted four days.

In June and July last year Shabaab gunmen killed close to 100 people in a series of attacks on the town of Mpeketoni and nearby villages.

In November Shabaab claimed responsibility for holding up a bus outside Mandera town, separating passengers according to religion and murdering 28 non-Muslims. Ten days later 36 non-Muslim quarry workers were also massacred in the area.

Students in Garissa on Thursday reported seeing up to four masked gunmen entering the university compound before dawn.

The area surrounding the university was sealed off by the Kenya security forces and the army called in.

Chad’s army said its forces had killed hundreds of Boko Haram militants and lost nine of its own troops in clashes in northern Nigeria on Wednesday, told CT.com.

Soldiers from Chad and Niger drove the insurgents from Malam Fatori, one of Boko Haram’s last major footholds near Nigeria’s border with Niger, earlier this week. Wednesday’s clashes took place as they were mopping up.

“There was fighting and we recorded nine dead and 16 injured. There were hundreds of dead on Boko Haram’s side,” said Colonel Azem Bermandoa, a spokesman for Chad’s army.

Bermandoa said the fighting had driven militants more than 10 km (6 miles) outside the town, which had been held by the militants since November. There was no immediate comment from Niger’s army on any casualties.

Boko Haram’s bid to create a caliphate in the north-east forced Nigeria to delay in an election due in February. An offensive by Nigerian, Chadian and Nigerien troops has since pushed militants out of most of the towns they previously controlled.

Militants failed to deliver on threats to cause havoc during the rescheduled election, and president-elect Muhammadu Buhari promised on Wednesday to “spare no effort” to defeat the group, which seized swathes of territory under outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan.

Gunfire and explosions have been heard in Kenya’s Garissa University College near border with Somalia, as the gunmen entered the building, BBC reported.

According to the British broadcaster, three people have been injured, including two police officers and a student. Kenyan armed forces have arrived at the scene, BBC reported.

There are unconfirmed reports in the local media that the gunmen have taken hostages, according to the BBC.

Soldiers fended off an attack on a border town in Niger by Boko Haram and destroyed a base used by the Islamic militants inside neighboring Nigeria in recent days, AP said Tuesday.

The two confrontations came as Nigeria elected a former military dictator as its new president amid anger over the Islamic insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. The militants have terrorized northern Nigeria and also attacked towns in neighboring countries, prompting nations in the region to mount a force to combat them.

The militants tried to attack the town of Bosso, Niger, just over the border with Nigeria, on Monday, according to a statement from Niger’s Defense Ministry. But troops from Niger and Chad – who are part of the force helping Nigeria to root out the insurgents – intervened, killing 47 militants and destroying several of their vehicles and mortars. The troops also captured a cache of weapons and ammunition.

On Saturday, troops from Niger and Chad destroyed a Boko Haram base inside Nigeria, also close to the Niger border, killing 54 militants, the statement said. Three troops from Niger were wounded in the raid, near the town of Talagam.

In the past two months, Nigeria’s military, with the help of the regional force, has retaken dozens of towns from Boko Haram. At least 10,000 people were killed in the uprising last year and more than 1.5 million people have been driven from their homes.

An International Red Cross worker was killed and a local colleague wounded when the aid truck they were driving was attacked by gunmen in northern Mali on Monday, in an attack claimed by the MUJAO jihadist group.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was “profoundly dismayed by the death of one of its staff in Mali” after his aid truck was attacked near the northern city of Gao on Monday morning. The nationality of the victim was not immediately released.

A member of the national Mali Red Cross was wounded in the attack and is in a stable condition, the ICRC said.

“The ICRC strongly condemns the attack and calls on all parties to the conflict to respect and protect humanitarian workers,” the organisation said in a statement.

A spokesman for the MUJAO group (the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) said the attack had killed “a driver who worked for the enemy”.

“We have achieved what we wanted with this attack,” Abou Walid Sahraoui told AFP by phone.

‘Carefully planned’

The ICRC staff member, named only as Hamadoun, was driving a truck from Gao to Niamey in neighbouring Niger “to collect much-needed medical equipment for Gao hospital”, said Yasmine Praz Dessimoz, head of ICRC’s operations for North and West Africa.

ICRC said the exact circumstances of the incident that killed the married father of four remained unclear, but stressed that the truck had been clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem.

An African military source with the United Nations’ MINUSMA mission in Mali said the attack happened between Gao and the town of Ansongo and had been “carefully planned”.

“It was carried out by at least six terrorists. Shots were fired,” the source said.

Mali’s unstable north

Divided into rival armed factions, plagued by drug trafficking and infiltrated by jihadist groups, Mali’s desert north has struggled for stability since the West African nation gained independence in 1960.

The ICRC’s Praz Dessimoz said the humanitarian situation in northern Mali was “worrying”.

“The ICRC is concerned about the rise in violence against humanitarian workers, which is preventing them from coming to the aid of individuals and communities in dire need,” she said in the statement.

The MUJAO was one of a number of Islamist militia groups that controlled northern Mali for nearly a year before they were routed and pushed north into the deserts of the Sahara by a French-led offensive in 2013.

Extremist fighters have however continued to stage sporadic attacks in Mali’s north.