Men stand in front the body of a suspected Garissa University College attacker, in front of a morgue in Garissa April 4, 2015. REUTERS/Noor Khamis

By Edith Honan

GARISSA, Kenya (Reuters) - Somali militants vowed on Saturday to wage a long war against Kenya and run its cities "red with blood" after the group's fighters killed nearly 150 people during an assault on a Kenyan university.

Kenyan officials said they had arrested five men in connection with Thursday's attack by al Shabaab gunmen at Garissa university, 200 km (120 miles) from the Somali border.

The raid has put Kenya on heightened alert and spooked Christian congregations, horrified by survivor tales recalling how the Islamist militants had sought out Christian students to kill, while sparing some Muslims.

In a message directed at the Kenyan public, the al Qaeda aligned group said the raid was revenge for Kenya's military presence in Somalia and mistreatment of Muslims within Kenya.

"No amount of precaution or safety measures will be able to guarantee your safety, thwart another attack or prevent another bloodbath from occurring in your cities," the group said in an emailed statement received by Reuters in the Somali capital.

It said it would run cities "red with blood", adding: "This will be a long, gruesome war of which you, the Kenyan public, are its first casualties."

The death toll in the Garissa blitz was put at 148. Four attackers also died and the authorities put their bullet-ridden, swollen bodies on display on Saturday, hoping that the hundreds of locals who viewed the corpses might be able to identify them.

The Interior Ministry said three men thought to have co-ordinated the assault were arrested while trying to flee to Somalia. They were all Kenyans of Somali origin, as was another of those detained, who was a security guard at the university.

A Tanzanian man named as Rashid Charles Mberesero was also arrested at the university.

"We suspect the Tanzanian, who was hiding in the ceiling, was one of the combatants. He had ammunition with him when he was arrested on Thursday night," ministry spokesman Mwenda Njoka told Reuters. "We suspect the guard facilitated the entry (into the university)."

The Kenya Red Cross said it had found a woman survivor on Saturday in the university, two days after the siege ended.

SCEPTICISM

The bloodshed piled further pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has struggled to stem the violence that has dented Kenya's image and ravaged the country's vital tourism industry.

The timing of the attack has been embarrassing for Kenyatta, who a day earlier had berated Britain and Australia for putting out travel warnings over security threats to the country.

Local media, whose coverage has been uncharacteristically tame due to a new law that forbids them from showing images that would create "fear" among the public, have been sceptical about the government's latest promise to halt the slaughter.

"The usual assurances that security is being beefed up and patrols intensified have become hollow," the biggest-selling Daily Nation newspaper said in an editorial comment.

Foreign media published a photograph they said was taken by Kenyan police that showed more than 70 bodies, lying face down in a university hallway, each apparently shot in the head.

More than 400 people have been killed by al Shabaab on Kenyan soil since Kenyatta took power in April 2013, including 67 people who died in September of that year during a siege on an upmarket shopping mall in the capital Nairobi.

The suspicion that the gunmen were helped by Kenyans will put pressure on the Muslim community and highlight the state's failure to stop radicalisation among its Muslim population, who make up about 10 percent of the 44-million-strong population.

Diplomats and analysts have criticised what they see as a heavy-handed approach by Kenyan police, saying tactics such as indiscriminate mass arrests of Kenya's Somali population plays into al Shabaab's hands and fuels resentment among Muslims.

Kenya said Mohamed Mohamud, a former teacher at a Garissa madrasa, was the attack mastermind, and offered a 20 million shillings ($215,000) reward for his arrest.

NOT GOING BACK

Garissa residents have reacted with fury to the massacre, and question why only two security guards were on duty despite warnings that al Shabaab was planning to target a university.

"You can't say this will be the last attack in Garissa," said construction worker Tobias Ayuka. "We are very worried."

Fearful of further assaults, owners of malls in Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa have sought greater government protection and ratcheted up private security.

"We are getting more armed police and plain clothes police officers. Everywhere is on heightened alert right now," said the owner of one high-end Nairobi mall popular with Westerners.

Along Kenya's palm-fringed coastline, where several resort towns cater mainly for Western tourists, police have put armed officers in major public buildings.

"Officers are everywhere both on the ground and in the air. We have two helicopters that will be patrolling the entire coastal area," Robert Kitur, police chief for Kenya's Indian Ocean coast region, told Reuters.

Garissa Governor Nathif Jama said the region has a number of security "soft spots", including schools and hospitals, and asked for more boots on the ground in his county, which forms part of Kenya's porous 700km border with Somalia.

Jama said Garissa University was shut indefinitely and some students said even if it reopened, they would not return.

"When I just manage to get out of this place safely, I'm telling you I'll never come back," said Sheillah Kigasha, 20, who survived Thursday's rampage by hiding under a bed.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Akwiri in Mombasa and Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

Militants: We'll turn Kenya cities 'red with blood'

After killing almost 150 people at a Kenya university, al Shabaab vows to wage a long war.
Skepticism greets government assurances

By Babak Dehghanpisheh and Ori Lewis

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Friday that a framework for a nuclear deal was just the first step toward building a new relationship with the world, after Iranians greeted the announcement of the accord with celebrations in the streets.

U.S. President Barack Obama also hailed what he called a "historic understanding," although diplomats cautioned that hard work lies ahead to strike a final deal. That work will include efforts by Obama to sell an eventual accord to critics at home, and to close ally Israel, which denounced the interim agreement and pressed for more safeguards in coming negotiations.

The tentative agreement, struck on Thursday after eight days of talks between Iran and six world powers in Lausanne, Switzerland, clears the way for a settlement to allay Western fears that Iran could build an atomic bomb, with economic sanctions on Tehran being lifted in return.

It marks the most significant step toward rapprochement between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Iranian revolution, and could potentially end decades of international isolation, with far-reaching political consequences in the Middle East.

In a televised speech on Friday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in a landslide two years ago on a promise to reduce Iran's isolation, said the nuclear talks were just the start of a broader policy of opening up.

"This is a first step towards productive interactions with the world," he said.

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From left Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond speaks to US Secretary of State John Kerry as European Un …

"Today is a day that will remain in the historic memory of the Iranian nation," he added. "Some think that we must either fight the world or surrender to world powers. We say it is neither of those, there is a third way. We can have cooperation with the world."

The deal requires experts to work out difficult details before a June 30 deadline, and diplomats noted that it could still collapse at any time before then.

The agreement angered Washington's closest regional ally, Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared it could lead to nuclear proliferation, war and even his country's destruction. Israel believes Iran's goal is to destroy it.

Netanyahu, who has the ear of Republicans who control both houses of the U.S. Congress, said the powers negotiating with Iran must add a new demand that Tehran specifically recognize Israel's right to exist.

It appeared Netanyahu's demand would be unlikely to be taken up, even if the Obama administration is sympathetic to his concerns. Asked whether its inclusion in the final deal would be appropriate, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in Washington:

"This is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue. We have purposefully kept that separate from every other issue. This is an agreement that doesn't deal with any other issues, nor should it. And that's what we're focused on."

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From left, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign …

Asked about Netanyahu's demand, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said he had not seen the request but was aware of Israel's ongoing concerns. "We understand his position," Schultz told reporters. "The president would never sign onto a deal that he felt was a threat to the state of Israel."

DECADES OF HOSTILITY

Under terms reached on Thursday, Iran would cut back its stockpiles of enriched uranium that could be used to make a nuclear bomb and dismantle most of the centrifuges it could use to make more. Intensive international inspections would prevent it from violating the terms in secret. Washington said the settlement would extend the "breakout time" needed for Iran to make a bomb to a full year, from 2-3 months now.

For Iran, it would eventually lead to the end of sanctions that have cut the oil exports underpinning its economy by more than half over the past three years.

Still, decades of hostility color the relationship between Iran and the United States. Obama and Rouhani, who both took risks to open the dialogue with secret talks two years ago, will also have to sell the deal to skeptical conservatives at home.

U.S. Republicans have demanded that Congress be given the right to review the deal. The White House expressed confidence about hammering out final details as Obama called the four top leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate - representing Republicans and his own Democratic Party - on Friday to discuss the framework agreement.

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Iranians flash the victory sign while waiting for arrival of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif f …

TEHRAN CELEBRATES

Celebrations, punctuated by honking car horns, erupted in the Iranian capital after the deal was reached.

Conservative clerics signaled their support on Friday, including on behalf of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose authority exceeds that of the elected president.

In the weekly sermon at Tehran University, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani, a 78-year-old hardline cleric, said Khamenei backed the negotiating team. Emami-Kashani praised the negotiators as "firm, wise and calm" and congratulated Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

With Russia and China joining the United States, Britain, France and Germany as signatories to the deal, and even Iran's Sunni Arab enemies cautiously welcoming it, Israel was the only country that publicly opposed it.

Iran's other main foe in the region, Saudi Arabia, was more cautious, supporting the agreement in public, although its mistrust remains deep. It launched a bombing campaign a week ago against Houthis, Iranian allies in Yemen.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said it was too early to celebrate. But he also said Israel should study the deal more closely before opposing it.

Saudi Arabia's new ruler, King Salman, told Obama by telephone on Thursday he hoped a final nuclear settlement would "strengthen the stability and security of the region and the world".

However, the Saudis and other Sunni Arab states are concerned about a deal that benefits Iran, the leading Shi'ite Muslim power, which they see as a dangerous rival expanding its influence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.

The Wall Street Journal said on Friday the Pentagon has been upgrading the biggest bunker-buster bomb in its arsenal even as talks continued over Tehran's nuclear program, readying a weapon that could destroy Iran's facilities if negotiations failed.

Work to improve the design, guidance systems and anti-jamming capabilities on the so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator began before the latest round of negotiations with Iran started. The most recent test of the 30,000-pound device was in mid-January, the Journal said.

The bomb was created to give the U.S. president options for attacking fortified facilities like Iran's Fordow nuclear installation, which is built into a mountain.

(Additional reporting by Lou Charbonneau, Stephanie Nebehay, John Irish, Parisa Hafezi, Leigh Thomas, Sam Wilkin, Alina Selyukh, Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Writing by Peter Graff and Frances Kerry; Editing by Giles Elgood, Dan Grebler and Sandra Maler)

Promises that Fukushima radiation is "under control" broken; TEPCO still sponsoring 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo

By Stephanie Nebehay and Mohammad Mukhashaf

GENEVA/ADEN (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross appealed on Saturday for an immediate 24-hour halt to hostilities in Yemen to deliver life-saving medical aid into the country where it said the humanitarian situation was dire.

The Saudi-led military coalition conducting air strikes in Yemen was still blocking three shipments of aid and medical staff, aid agency said earlier. Talks were being held with all parties, spokeswoman Sitara Jabeen said.

"All air, land and sea routes must be opened without delay for at least 24 hours to enable help to reach people cut off after more than a week of intense air strikes and fierce ground fighting nationwide," the ICRC said in a statement.

The Saudi-led coalition, which is bombing Iran-allied Houthi fighters and army units fighting forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has taken control of Yemeni air space and ports since it began its offensive ten days ago.

More than 48 tonnes of medicines and surgical kits – enough to treat up to 3,000 people – are ready to leave for Yemen by boat and plane, pending clearance, the statement said. An ICRC surgical team of four is on standby in Djibouti to go to Aden.

"Because there have been positive developments in our discussions, we are hopeful of getting all clearances needed by Sunday," Jabeen told Reuters.

SHORTAGES

Hospitals and clinics are running low on medicines and equipment, according to the ICRC, which has 300 aid workers in Yemen, including foreigners. Many areas suffer fuel and water shortages, and food stocks are being depleted, it said.

"We urgently need an immediate halt to the fighting, to allow families in the worst affected areas, such as Aden, to venture out to get food and water, or to seek medical care," said Robert Mardini, head of the ICRC's operations in the Near and Middle East. "For the wounded, their chances of survival depend on action within hours, not days."

The United Nations Security Council was due to hold a meeting called by Russia to discuss a humanitarian pause in the air strikes.

U.N. relief coordinator Valerie Amos said on Thursday 519 people have been killed in the fighting and nearly 1,700 wounded, without specifying whether those figures included combatants.

Residents of central Aden, the southern city where Houthi fighters and their allies have been battling forces loyal to Hadi, said on Saturday some areas had been without water or electricity for two days.

"How can we work? This is unacceptable. How long can people live without water or electricity?" said Mohammad Fara'a, a resident of Aden's central Crater district, which was briefly captured on Thursday by Houthi forces.

Another Crater resident, Hassan Abdallah, said people were resorting to a long-disused well at one of the city's mosques to get water. In the adjacent Mualla neighborhood, Abdu Hassan said his family was using up the last water in their tank.

"When that runs out, God knows what we will do," he said.

(Writing by Stephanie Nebehay and Dominic Evans; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Red Cross seeks cease-fire in Yemen to deliver aid

The committee is requesting a 24-hour halt to hostilities to deliver life-saving aid to the wounded and dying.
'Routes must be opened'

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Shiite rebels freed more than 300 prisoners in the southern city of Dhale, Yemeni security officials said, as the rebels fought pitched battles with supporters of the country's beleaguered President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in the southern port city of Aden.

The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, have been trying to take control of Dhale in order to open up a corridor to Aden, a stronghold for Hadi loyalists.

Since their advance began last year, the Houthis have overrun Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and several provinces, forcing Hadi to flee the country.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists, said that after the Houthi fighters took control of Dhale's central prison, they gave inmates a choice between joining their ranks or remaining incarcerated.

A Saudi-led coalition continued to carry out intensive airstrikes overnight and early Saturday morning targeting Houthi positions in north and east Aden. The airstrikes continued in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in the north of the country.

As night fell, the airstrikes rocked northern Sanaa, Yemen's capital, prompting dozens of families to flee their homes.

The rebel-controlled Ministry of Interior said 11 people were killed, including four children, when a coalition airstrike hit the village of Hajer, west of Sanaa.

In Aden, pro-Hadi militias are facing off against a combined force of Houthi fighters aligned with forces loyal to Hadi's predecessor — ousted autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh. Eyewitnesses said rebel snipers are shooting at their adversaries from the city's rooftops.

Coalition planes airdropped weapons to fighters battling the Houthis in Aden early Friday, the first such airdrop since the strikes began 10 days ago.

Medical officials said six civilians were killed Saturday during fighting at the entrance of al-Ma'ala, a town on the outskirts of Aden.

Critics of the Houthis charge that they are an Iranian proxy. Iran has provided aid to the rebels, but both Tehran and the Houthis deny it has armed them.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi met with his country's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to discuss Egypt's role in the Saudi-led Yemen campaign.

"Egypt will never abandon her brothers in the Gulf," he said in remarks following the meeting and carried on state and private television channels.

El-Sissi added that he and his Gulf allies considered the Bab el-Mandeb strait an issue of national security.

The Houthis and their allies took up positions last week overlooking the strategic strait, which serves as a gateway to the Suez Canal, raising the risk they could threaten the key global shipping route with heavy weapons.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel Salam said in a statement that "sowing fear about the Bab el-Mandeb aims to support aggression in Yemen," adding that the rebels are open to talks with Egypt about the issue.