Law graduate named as Kenya massacre killer as country mourns

[NAIROBI] Kenya on Sunday began three days of national mourning for the 148 people massacred by Somalia's Shebab militants at a university as authorities identified one of the gunmen as a smart law graduate.

Hundreds packed Nairobi's Anglican cathedral where Archbishop Eliud Wabukala said Easter services were overshadowed by "great and terrible evil" as police patrolled outside.

"These terrorists want to cause divisions in our society, but we shall tell them, 'You will never prevail,'" the archbishop said.

Flags were at half mast and although President Uhuru Kenyatta has vowed to retaliate "in the severest way possible", there have also been calls for national unity.

Kenyatta said people's "justified anger" should not lead to "the victimisation of anyone" - a clear reference to Kenya's large Muslim and Somali minorities.

Authorities meanwhile announced that they had identified one of the four dead Shebab gunmen as an ethnic Somali Kenyan national who was a A-grade pupil and law graduate - highlighting Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab's ability to recruit within Kenya.

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.

AFP