GARISSA, Kenya (AP) - Al-Shabab gunmen rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya at dawn Thursday, killing 147 people in the group's deadliest attack in the East African country. Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk.
The masked attackers - strapped with explosives and armed with AK-47s - singled out non-Muslim students at Garissa University College and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. Others ran for their lives with bullets whistling through the air.
The men took dozens of hostages in a dormitory for several hours as they battled troops and police before the operation was ended after about 13 hours, witnesses said.
When gunfire from the Kenyan security forces struck the attackers, the militants exploded "like bombs," Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said, adding that the shrapnel wounded some of the officers.
Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said fighters from the Somalia-based extremist group were responsible. The al-Qaida-linked group has been blamed for a series of attacks in Kenya, including the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013 that killed 67 people, as well as other violence in the north.
Most of the 147 dead were students, but the two security guards, one policeman and one soldier also were killed in the attack, Nkaissery said.
At least 79 people were wounded at the campus 90 miles from the Somali border, he said. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was ordered in Garissa and three nearby counties.
One suspected extremist was arrested as he tried to flee, Nkaissery told a news conference in Nairobi.
Police identified a possible mastermind of the attack as Mohammed Mohamud, who is alleged to lead al-Shabab's cross-border raids into Kenya, and they posted a $220,000 bounty for him. Also known by the names Dulyadin and Gamadhere, he was a teacher at an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, and claimed responsibility for a bus attack in Makka, Kenya, in November that killed 28 people.
One of the survivors of Thursday's attack, Collins Wetangula, told the Associated Press he was preparing to take a shower when he heard gunshots coming from Tana dorm, which hosts both men and women, 150 yards away. The campus has six dorms and at least 887 students, he said.
When he heard the gunshots, he locked himself and three roommates in their room, said Wetangula, who is vice chairman of the university's student union.
"All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots. Nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are," he said.
He added: "The gunmen were saying, "Sisi ni al-Shabab,'" - Swahili for "We are al-Shabab."
He heard the attackers arrive at his dormitory, open the doors and ask if the people who had hidden inside were Muslims or Christians.
"If you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot," he said. "With each blast of the gun, I thought I was going to die."
The gunmen then started shooting rapidly, as if exchanging fire, Wetangula said.
"The next thing, we saw people in military uniform through the window of the back of our rooms who identified themselves as the Kenyan military," he said. The soldiers took him and around 20 others to safety.
The attack began about 5:30 a.m., as morning prayers were underway at the university mosque, where worshippers were not attacked, said Augustine Alanga, a 21-year-old student.
At least five heavily armed, masked gunmen opened fire outside his dormitory, turning intense almost immediately and setting off panic, he told the AP by telephone.
The shooting kept some students indoors but scores of others fled through barbed-wire fencing around the campus, with the gunmen firing at them, he said.
As terrified students streamed out of buildings, arriving police officers took cover. Kenya's National Police Service said a "fierce shootout" ensued as police guarded the dorms.