(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Kenyans prepared to march for greater national security Tuesday following last week's massacre by Somalia's Shebab Islamists, ahead of a candlelit vigil on the final day of mourning for the 148 people killed by the militants.
Kenyan fighter jets pounded camps belonging to the Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in southern Somalia on Monday, but anger has been growing over allegations that critical intelligence warnings were missed.
Special forces units took seven hours to reach the university in Garissa last Thursday, some 365 kilometres (225 miles) from the capital, as Shebab gunmen stormed dormitory buildings before lining up non-Muslim students for execution in what President Uhuru Kenyatta described as a "barbaric medieval slaughter".
The massacre, Kenya's deadliest attack since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, claimed the lives of 142 students, three police officers and three soldiers.
Tuesday's demonstration was due to begin at 10:00 am (0700 GMT) in Nairobi as security forces continued their hunt for those behind the university killings, with the vigil planned for later in the afternoon on the third and final day of national mourning.
The army said Monday's airstrikes destroyed two Islamist bases, and followed a promise by Kenyatta that he would retaliate "in the severest way possible" against the Shebab militants for their attack last Thursday.
"We bombed two Shebab camps in the Gedo region," Kenyan army spokesman David Obonyo told AFP, without giving details about any possible casualties in the lawless Somali area bordering Kenya.
- Battle against Shebab -
Kenyan airplanes have made repeated strikes in southern Somalia since sending troops into their war-torn neighbour in 2011 to attack Shebab bases, with Nairobi later joining the African Union force fighting the Islamists.
"The bombings are part of the continued process and engagement against Al-Shebab, which will go on," Obonyo added.
The Shebab fled their power base in Somalia's capital Mogadishu in 2011, and continue to battle the AU force, AMISOM, sent to drive them out. It includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.
The Shebab group has carried out a string of revenge attacks in neighbouring countries, notably Kenya and Uganda, in response to their participation in the AU force.
On Saturday, Shebab warned of "another bloodbath" unless Kenya withdraws its troops from Somalia, and threatened a "long, gruesome war".
Shebab fighters also carried out the Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi in September 2013, a four-day siege which left at least 67 people dead.
Five men have been arrested in connection with the university attack, including three alleged "coordinators" captured as they fled towards Somalia, and two others seized in the university compound.
The two arrested on campus included a security guard and a Tanzanian found "hiding in the ceiling" and holding grenades, the interior ministry said.
A $215,000 (200,000 euro) bounty has also been offered for alleged Shebab commander Mohamed Mohamud, a former Kenyan teacher said to be the mastermind behind the attack and believed to now be in Somalia.
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