Connect with us

World

Kenya’s President Vows Harsh Action Against Somali Rebels

Published

on

Women in the crowd cover their faces to protect against the smell as authorities display the bodies of the alleged attackers before about 2,000 people in a large open area in central Garissa, Kenya Saturday, April 4, 2015. Authorities displayed the bodies of the alleged attackers involved in the killings at Garissa University College on the bed of a pickup truck that drove slowly past the crowd, which broke into a run in pursuit. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Women in the crowd cover their faces to protect against the smell as authorities display the bodies of the alleged attackers before about 2,000 people in a large open area in central Garissa, Kenya Saturday, April 4, 2015. Authorities displayed the bodies of the alleged attackers involved in the killings at Garissa University College on the bed of a pickup truck that drove slowly past the crowd, which broke into a run in pursuit. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

 

 

GARISSA, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s president has vowed to take harsh measures against Islamic militants after they attacked a school near the Somali border, killing 148 people.

President Uhuru Kenyatta warned Saturday in a nationally televised address that the planners and financiers of attacks like the one in Garissa town are “deeply embedded in our communities.”

Kenyatta said his administration “shall respond in the severest ways possible” to the Garissa attack, which occurred Thursday when four gunmen entered a campus and slaughtered students. The military moved in hours later and the gunmen were killed.

“We will fight terrorism to the end,” said Kenyatta. “I want you to know that our security forces are pursuing the remaining accomplices. We will bring all of them to justice … We are also in active pursuit of the mastermind (of the Garissa attack) and have placed a reward for his capture,” he said.

Kenyatta urged survivors of the Garissa attack “to continue working hard in their education.”

Kenyatta declared 3 days of national mourning over the Garissa attack.

Kenyatta’s nationwide address came after Somalia’s Islamic extremist group al-Shabab warned of more attacks in Kenya like the assault on Garissa University College.

“Kenyan cities will run red with blood,” said al-Shabab according to the SITE intelligence monitoring group.

The Islamic militants said the attack on Garissa college was in retaliation for killings carried out by Kenyan troops fighting the rebels in Somalia.

“This will be a long, gruesome war of which you, the Kenyan public, are its first casualties,” said the statement, issued on Shabab-affiliated websites and Twitter accounts

“No amount of precaution or safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath,” said the al-Shabab statement.

Five people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Garissa attack, a Kenyan official said.

Kenyan security agencies arrested three people trying to cross into Somalia, said Interior Ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka in a Twitter post. He said the three are associates of Mohamed Mohamud, also known as Dulyadin Gamadhere, a former teacher at a Kenyan Madrassa Islamic school who authorities say coordinated the Garissa attack. Kenyan authorities have put a $220,000 bounty for information leading to Gamadhere’s arrest.

Two other suspects were arrested at Garissa college.

A survivor of the killings at Garissa University College was found on Saturday, two days after the attack by Islamic extremists killed 148 people.

Cynthia Cheroitich, 19, told The Associated Press from her hospital gurney that she hid in a wardrobe and covered herself with clothes, refusing to emerge even when some of her classmates came out of hiding at the demands of the gunmen from the al-Shabab group.

She was rescued shortly before 10 a.m., according to Kenyan officials.

Cheroitich said she didn’t believe that rescuers urging her to come out of her hiding place were there to help, suspecting at first that they were militants.

“How do I know that you are the Kenyan police?” she said she asked them.

Only when Kenyan security forces had one of her teachers appeal to her did she come out, she said.

“I was just praying to my God,” Cheroitich, a Christian, said of her ordeal.

Cheroitich appeared tired and thirsty, sipping on yoghurt and a soft drink, but otherwise seemed in good health.

She said she drank a body lotion because she was so thirsty and hungry while in hiding.

Authorities displayed the bodies of the alleged attackers before about 2,000 people in a large open area in central Garissa. The bodies lay on the bed of a pickup truck that drove slowly past the crowd, which broke into a run in pursuit. Soldiers monitored the crowd. There was shouting and clouds of dust rose as the vehicle left the area.

Spectator Yusuf Mohamed applauded the display, saying authorities wanted to “win the hearts of the people” and clear any doubts that the attackers had been killed.

Kenyan authorities initially said the attackers had been strapped with explosives that went off like bombs when they were shot, but investigators later said there were no suicide vests. The four bodies shown Saturday had wounds but were intact.

The bodies of many of those killed in Garissa have been transported to the capital, Nairobi, where grieving Kenyans gathered to view the remains of family members.

___

Odula contributed to this report from Nairobi.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

###

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Bay Area

Nigerian Bank Chief Killed in Helicopter Crash on Way to Superbowl XVIII

According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept., the crash occurred near Nipton, on the edge of the Mojave Desert Preserve. The poor weather conditions — rain, wind and snow showers—may have contributed to the accident, although the investigation is not complete. All six aboard were killed. Herbert Wigwe, 57, founded Access Bank in 1989, and it became the country’s largest competitor, Diamond Bank in 2018.

Published

on

Herbert Wigwe with his wife, Chizoba Wigwe, left, and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, right. ENigeria Newspaper image.
Herbert Wigwe with his wife, Chizoba Wigwe, left, and Abimbola Ogunbanjo, right. ENigeria Newspaper image.

By Post Staff

The co-founder of one of Nigeria’s largest banks died with his wife, son and three others when the helicopter transporting them from Palm Springs, Ca., to Boulder City, Nev. to attend the fifty-eighth SuperBowl at the stadium outside Las Vegas crashed on Feb. 9.

According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept., the crash occurred near Nipton, on the edge of the Mojave Desert Preserve. The poor weather conditions — rain, wind and snow showers—may have contributed to the accident, although the investigation is not complete. All six aboard were killed

Herbert Wigwe, 57, founded Access Bank in 1989, and it became the country’s largest competitor, Diamond Bank in 2018.

More recently, Wigwe was planning to open a banking service in Asia this year after making successful expansions to other parts of Africa, including South Africa, Kenya, and Botswana.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu described Wigwe’s death as an ‘overwhelming tragedy.”

Oakland resident and Nigerian immigrant Kayode Gbadebo agrees with Tinubu. He met Wigwe in Nigeria but crossed paths with him in London in 2006. Wigwe, he said, “took risks.”

He was young and people thought he couldn’t do what he intended, which was not so much about money but community.

“He was more like Jesus in washing the feet of the poor– Wigwe was culturizing community,” Gbadebo said.

“There will never be another like him. This is a deep, deep loss” and he hopes everyone will eventually “be comforted.”

He was also disappointed that a replacement has already been named even before Wigwe is buried. “It is not reasonable. You don’t want a vacuum, but it’s” not fair to the family, Gbadebo observed.

Wigwe had also been working to solve the migration issues from African countries, believing that “investing in higher education was key to controlling mass migration, which “is destabilising countries across the world,” BBC News reported.

“We need to take a holistic approach to address global migration, starting with our traditional framework for international development,” Wigwe wrote.

To that end, according to BBC News, Wigwe was preparing to open Wigwe University in Niger, where he was from.

“The best place to limit migration is not in the middle of the Mediterranean or the English Channel or the Rio Grande. It is in the home countries that so many migrants are so desperate to leave,” he wrote, saying his university was an opportunity for him “to give back to society.”

Besides Wigwe and his wife, Chizoba Nwuba Wigwe, and one son, two crew members and Bimbo Ogunbanjo, former group chairman of the Nigerian Exchange Group Plc, were also killed in the crash.

According to Wikipedia, three other children survive Wigwe.

In his statement reported in People magazine, Tinubu described Wigwe as “a distinguished banker, humanitarian, and entrepreneur.”

“I pray for the peaceful repose of the departed and ask God Almighty to comfort the multitude of Nigerians who are grieving and the families of the deceased at this deeply agonizing moment,” the president said.

He added, “Their passing is an overwhelming tragedy that is shocking beyond comprehension.”

Besides feeling the tremendous loss, Gbadebo fears the disorder and greed that will follow. “It’s a mess,” he said.

People magazine, BBC News and Wikipedia were the sources for this report.

Continue Reading

Activism

No Valid Reason for Failing to Condemn Hamas’ Act of Terrorism

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed the Israel-Gaza border and indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes. They killed nearly 300 young people at a music festival and took at least 200 hostages including 30 children. The atrocities they committed included massacres of families, abduction of the elderly and children, burning of babies and rapes of women.

Published

on

iStock image.
iStock image.

By Joe W. Bowers Jr.

California Black Media

OPINION

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed the Israel-Gaza border and indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes.

They killed nearly 300 young people at a music festival and took at least 200 hostages including 30 children. The atrocities they committed included massacres of families, abduction of the elderly and children, burning of babies and rapes of women.

The horrific surprise attack deserves universal and unequivocal condemnation. President Joe Biden called what Hamas did “an act of sheer evil” and pledged to defend the lives of Israelis and Jewish Americans.

He said, “Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have.”

Hamas killed approximately 1,400 people including 32 Americans. Citizens from 40 different countries including the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, and Thailand were killed or reported missing.

Hamas fighters breached Israel’s border defenses on the final day of Sukkot while soldiers were away due to the holiday and launched attacks on 22 towns outside the Gaza Strip. This security lapse has been described as a catastrophic failure of Israel’s intelligence agencies..

Hamas is an extremist Islamist militant organization that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. It is recognized as an Iranian-backed terrorist group by the U.S. and the European Union and has a long history of violence against Jews and Palestinians, the latter of whom they often use as human shields.

While there have been plenty of groups who have unequivocally condemned the massacres, there are a number who haven’t, including organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Black Alliance for Peace, Red Nation, and independent Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapters (excluding the national Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation).

The DSA San Francisco chapter put out a statement on Oct. 9 that said, “Socialists support the Palestinian people’s, and all people’s, right to resist and fight for their own liberation. This weekend’s events are no different.”

Student organizations at a number of universities and colleges in California signed a solidarity statement titled “Resistance Uprising in Gaza” from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The statement attributes the violence of the Hamas attack to what it refers to as Israeli apartheid and occupation.

The SJP statement written by Bears for Palestine at UC Berkeley says, “We support the resistance, we support the liberation movement, and we indisputably support the Uprising.”  Essentially, these students are indirectly associating themselves with Hamas’ barbaric acts under the guise of “resistance.”

Signing the statement were 51 student organizations including those from Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC San Diego, CSU Sacramento, and USC.

A statement signed by 34 Harvard student organizations said, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

Many university leaders, where these students are enrolled, have been guilty of failing to unequivocally condemn Hamas and for inadequately addressing their students’ expressed support for Hamas.

Several Stanford faculty members, including three Nobel laureates, condemned Stanford’s administrators’ weak response to acts of terrorism and the expression of pro-Hamas sentiments by students on campus.

Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It dismantled 21 Israeli settlements in the territory and handed them over to the Palestinian Authority.

The assault by Hamas on Oct. 7 was not an ordinary clash with Israel. Hamas’ actions resulted in the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.

While there are valid reasons for protesting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and a real reckoning with the Israeli government on its policies is long overdue, nothing justifies Hamas’ attack.

Israelis who were killed largely had nothing to do with the conditions of Palestinians in Gaza. Some of the victims weren’t even Israeli — they were just tourists.

The students blaming Israel for the atrocities committed by Hamas have faced criticism. Some groups have withdrawn their endorsements because of the backlash aimed at them. Others have doubled down on their activism. SJP held a “National Day of Resistance” on several campuses.

Several CEOs have asked Harvard to disclose a list of members from the organizations assigning responsibility to Israel to insure they do not hire any of their members. A Berkeley law professor has also urged firms not to hire his students who have publicly blamed Israel for the war.

This California Black Media report was supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.

Continue Reading

Activism

Oakland Deputy Mayor Kimberly Mayfield Meets Legislators in France

Dr. Kimberly Mayfield, deputy mayor of the City of Oakland, met with elected officials in France, including two members of the French National Assembly, and visited several educational programs, where she spoke with educators and students. Dr. Mayfield was able to visit France after a visit to London with the Hidden Genius Project and Oakland Natives Give Back to participate in Black History Month, which takes place in October in England. No public money was spent.

Published

on

Attending the meeting at the French National Assembly were (L to R): Kimberly Mayfield, Danièle Obono, Nadège Abomangoli, and Robyn Wilkes. Photo courtesy of Kimberly Mayfield.
Attending the meeting at the French National Assembly were (L to R): Kimberly Mayfield, Danièle Obono, Nadège Abomangoli, and Robyn Wilkes. Photo courtesy of Kimberly Mayfield.

By Ken Epstein

Dr. Kimberly Mayfield, deputy mayor of the City of Oakland, last week met with elected officials in France, including two members of the French National Assembly, and visited several educational programs, where she spoke with educators and students.

She met with Danièle Obono and Nadège Abomangoli, both members of the French Parliament, where they discussed many issues, including policymaking, racism, and immigration.

Dr. Mayfield was able to visit France after a visit to London with the Hidden Genius Project and Oakland Natives Give Back to participate in Black History Month, which takes place in October in England. No public money was spent.

Obono, has represented the 17th constituency of Paris in the National Assembly since 2017. A member of La France Insoumise (FI), she was reelected in the first round of the 2022 legislative election.

Abomangoli, also a member of La France Insoumise, was elected to Parliament for Seine-Saint-Denis’s 10th constituency in the 2022 French legislative election. She was born in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo.

The two leaders had lots of questions about current conditions in the U.S., Dr. Mayfield told the Oakland Post. “They wanted to know what it means for Oakland to be a sanctuary city, what my thoughts were on the upcoming presidential elections, and what I thought the prospects were for Biden and Trump,” she said.

They also wanted to find out about Black fraternities and sororities in the U.S., and what people did to mobilize the vote, so that voter suppression would not be able to determine the outcome of elections.

They pointed out that, as in the U.S., people in France are dealing with police brutality, and the handful of Black members of Parliament sometimes face hostility when they speak out.

With an extensive background as an education professor and administrator, as well as a public-school teacher, Mayfield said she was excited to have the opportunity to visit a primary and a middle school and had a wide-ranging conversation with young people at Réseau Etudiant, an after-school study program.

She also met with residents and elected officials from Gennevilliers, a small port city close to Paris, which is similar to Oakland in demographics and politics.

Zahir Meliani, a resident of Gennevilliers, made arrangements for Mayfield’s meetings at the Parliament and her visit to his city.

She was welcomed by Mayor Patrice Leclerc and one of his deputies, Celine Lanoiselée, and they toured areas of the town. They discussed some differences in city governance structures between France and the U.S. and explored the potential for exchange visits between young people in the two countries.

“I am excited to work on improving our cities and contributing to peace in the world by using the potential for online and in-person visits to learn from each other,” said Mayfield.

Continue Reading

Subscribe to receive news and updates from the Oakland Post

* indicates required

CHECK OUT THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE OAKLAND POST

ADVERTISEMENT

WORK FROM HOME

Home-based business with potential monthly income of $10K+ per month. A proven training system and website provided to maximize business effectiveness. Perfect job to earn side and primary income. Contact Lynne for more details: Lynne4npusa@gmail.com 800-334-0540

Facebook

Trending

Copyright ©2021 Post News Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.