147 killed in al-Shabab attack on Kenyan university.

[Valigarmander]

For the glory of Allah.

The number of people killed in an attack by al-Shabab Islamist militants on a university in north-eastern Kenya has risen to 147, Kenyan government officials say.

The operation to secure the Garissa University College campus was now over, with all four attackers killed, they added.

Officials said 587 students had been evacuated, 79 of whom were injured.

An overnight curfew is being implemented in parts of the country.

Four counties near the Kenya-Somalia border, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera and Tana River, would have dusk-to-dawn curfews imposed, disaster management officials said.

Nine critically injured students were airlifted to the capital Nairobi for treatment, they added.

But each student had been accounted for by the end of the evacuation.

Masked gunmen had stormed the university early on Thursday morning.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned what he called a "terrorist attack" and said the UN was ready to help Kenya "prevent and counter terrorism and violent extremism".

The United States said it was offering Nairobi assistance to take on al-Shabab and will continue to work with others in the region to take on the group.

The Kenyan government has named Mohamed Kuno, a high-ranking al-Shabab official, as the mastermind of the attack.

A BBC Somali Service reporter says Mr Kuno was headmaster at an Islamic school in Garissa before he quit in 2007.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta offered his condolences to families of the victims and ordered "urgent steps" to ensure police recruits could begin training immediately. "We have suffered unnecessarily due to shortage of security personnel," he said.

Earlier, al-Shabab told the BBC its members were holding Christians hostage and freeing Muslims.

The gunmen reportedly ordered students to lie down on the floor, but some of them escaped.

Student Augustine Alanga told the BBC's Newsday programme: "It was horrible, there was shooting everywhere."

He said it was "pathetic" that the university was only guarded by two police officers.

Student Collins Wetangula said when the gunmen entered his hostel he could hear them opening doors and asking if the people inside were Muslims or Christians, the AP news agency reports.

"If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot. With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die," he said.

Al-Shabab says it attacked the university because it is at war with Kenya, BBC Africa analyst Mary Harper reports.

Kenyan troops entered Somalia in October 2011 in an effort to stop the Islamists from crossing the long, porous border between the two countries and kidnapping people - but their presence achieved the opposite effect, provoking al-Shabab to increase its activity in Kenya, our correspondent adds.

[Unbeliever]

The whole situation in the Middle East seems to be developing into a Muslim vs Christian religious war. One group of the ignorant against another group of the ignorant.

[Aletheia]

The whole situation in the Middle East seems to be developing into a Muslim vs Christian religious war. One group of the ignorant against another group of the ignorant.

You do realize these two idiots have been at it for centuries, right? Why would they change now?

[Valigarmander]

The whole situation in the Middle East seems to be developing into a Muslim vs Christian religious war. One group of the ignorant against another group of the ignorant.

1. Kenya is in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Apart from violence in the Central African Republic, how many recent mass killings of Muslims by Christians can you recall?

[Shiranu]

1. Kenya is in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Apart from violence in the Central African Republic, how many recent mass killings of Muslims by Christians can you recall?

#2: Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars, 120,000 Albanian casualties.
1995 killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak ("Bosnian Muslim") men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000â€"30,000 Bosniak civilians.

You do realize these two idiots have been at it for centuries, right? Why would they change now?

Historically not entirely accurate, until colonialism throwing power way out of whack, Christianity and Islam (and Judaism) were pretty stable in the region. While they have certainly competed, the violence between them is, historically, less than the violence between groups like the Protestants and Catholics.

[Unbeliever]

You do realize these two idiots have been at it for centuries, right? Why would they change now?

Uh, yeah, good point. But it does seem to be growing in intensity.

[Unbeliever]

1. Kenya is in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Apart from violence in the Central African Republic, how many recent mass killings of Muslims by Christians can you recall?

That's why I said "Muslim vs Christian" rather that the obverse.

But then again, consider the long war America has been having with Afghanistan and Iraq. Christians killed a whole hell of a lot of Muslims for more than a decade.