al-Shabab Gunman Abdirahim Abdullahi Identified As Son Of Kenyan Govt Official Involved In Garrisa Killings

by Musa Abdullahi & Agency Reports

Kenya’s government has identified one of the al-Shabab gunmen responsible for killing nearly 150 people in a brutal attack at a university on Thursday as the son of a Kenyan government official.

Kenya’s interior ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka said the gunman, named as Abdirahim Abdullahi, had been known to police as his father had reported his disappearance to security officials.

Abdullahi’s father, a chief in Mandera County, fearing his son had travelled to Somalia, had already been helping police to trace his whereabouts by the time the brutal attack on the university occurred.

“The father had reported to security agents that his son had disappeared from home… and was helping the police try to trace his son by the time Garissa terror attack happened,” Njoka told Reuters news agency.

It has not been made clear whether Abdullahi is one of the four gunmen who were shot and killed by police when they ended the deadly siege on Thursday at the university campus, whether he is one of the five al-Shabab members that have subsequently been arrested for the attack, or whether he is one of the accomplices still being sought by security forces.

The massacre carried out on Thursday that claimed the lives of 148 people has been called the worst terror attack in Kenya in 15 years.

Gunmen stormed the Garissa University College campus last week killing people and taking hostages security forces ended the siege. Militants had singled out Christians for point blank executions during their bloody rampage.