4:45 p.m. (1345 GMT, 9:45 a.m. EDT)
Kenyan police have offered a $220,000 bounty for Mohammed Mohamud, also known as Dulyadin alias Gamadhere whom they believe is the mastermind of the attack on a college in Garissa, in northeast Kenya.
Al-Shabab gunmen attacked Garissa University College on Thursday, targeting Christians and killing at least 15 people and wounding 60 others. Witnesses said the gunmen said they were from al-Shabab, a Somali extremist Islamic group, and the group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
4 p.m. (1300 GMT, 9 a.m. EDT)
President Uhuru Kenyatta says the government has deployed security forces try to end a hostage situation more than nine hours since al-Shabab gunmen attacked a college in northeast Kenya.
At least 15 people were killed and 60 wounded Thursday in the attack on Garissa University College.
Kenyatta said in an address to the nation he had directed the police chief to fast-track the training of 10,000 police recruits whose enro’lment is pending.
He said Kenya had “suffered unnecessarily due to shortage of security personnel.”
3: 40 p.m. (1240 GMT, 8: 40 a.m. EDT)
Kenya’s president says hostages have been taken in the attack on a college in the northeastern town of Garissa.
In a speech to the nation President Kenyatta Uhuru said: “I am saddened to inform the Nation that early today, terrorists attacked Garissa University College killed and wounded several people and have taken others hostage.”
He said details would be forthcoming “in due course” from security officials.
2: 50 p.m. (1150 GMT, 7:50 a.m. EDT)
Kenya’s Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery says one suspected extremist was arrested as he attempted to flee the scene of an al-Shabab attack on a college in northeast Kenya. One survivor said he personally saw five gunmen at the Garissa University College. Nkaissery made the announcement in a press conference in Nairobi, the capital.
2: 35 p.m. (11:35 GMT, 7:35 a.m. EDT)
Michael Bwana, a 20-year-old student who managed to flee from the al-Shabab attack on a college in Kenya, said he and other survivors have been trying to call their trapped friends but their phones are switched off.
Either the students turned off their phones for their own safety or the gunmen have seized the handsets, he said.
“Most of the people still inside there are girls,” he told The Associated Press, referring to the student dormitory in which gunmen are believed to be holding an unknown number of students.
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