Security should have been “beefed up” but was not, and once the attack began a “lack of coordination” undermined the response, Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery told a parliamentary committee.

“There was lack of coordination on the side of the officers, there was intelligence that this place was going to be attacked,” Nkaissery said.

Militants from Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shabab rebels killed 148 people during the assault on the university in northeast Kenya on April 2. It was the group’s deadliest attack to date.
Student survivors said notices had been put up around the campus warning that an attack was possible. One student told AFP the notices were not taken seriously because they were posted on April Fool’s, the day before the attack.

When the four masked gunmen struck, only unarmed security guards stood between the attackers and their victims. The intelligence and security failings are reminiscent of Kenya’s botched response to the 2013 attack on Nairobi’s Westgate mall, when prior intelligence was also ignored. During the attack itself a lack of clarity over chain of command and coordination between forces inside the mall led to Kenyan soldiers and police firing on each other leaving one member of the elite Recce Company dead.

Appearing before a parliamentary security committee, Nkaissery — who was appointed interior minister in December after his predecessor was sacked following a series of deadly Shabab attacks — defended his ministry, instead blaming regional and county security officials for the failings.