12 killed in Shabaab bomb attack in Kenya

Nairobi has been battling the Shabaab,
an al-Qaeda linked militant group
headquartered in Somalia, that carries
out regular deadly attacks in Kenya
A bomb blast at a guesthouse in
northeast Kenya killed at least 12
people on Tuesday, in an attack
claimed by Shabaab militants which
last hit the area earlier this month.
“We have found 12 bodies so far after
we managed to access the building,” a
senior police officer told AFP.
“We are still combing the area with
the help of anti-terrorism police and
sniffer dogs in the ongoing search and
rescue.”
Eleven men and one woman were
killed in the 3:30 am (0030 GMT) blast
at the Bisharo lodge, a police source
told AFP. The toll was confirmed in a
government statement that said part of
the building was collapsed by the
blast.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militant
group claimed the attack in a message
broadcast by its Radio Andalus media
organisation, claiming 15 were killed.
“This attack is part of a series of
attacks in which the Mujahideen are
hunting down infidels” in northeast
Kenya, the group said.
It is the second Shabaab strike in
Mandera in three weeks. The previous
one on October 6 killed six people at a
gated residential building that mainly
housed non-ethnic Somalis and non-
Muslims, less than a kilometre from
the volatile Somalia border town of
Beled Hawa.
Mandera governor Ali Roba said the
raids were designed to divide
communities and destroy the
economy.
“This is an attack that is aimed at
making sure we don’t attract investors,
we do not attract a professional
workforce, we do not have interaction
with the rest of the country,” Roba told
a press conference on Tuesday
morning.
Northeastern regional security boss
Mohamoud Saleh said he suspected
“local criminal gangs” of complicity
since border security had been stepped
up after the October 6 attack.
Another security source who did not
want to be named told AFP local
politics might also be involved, with
some seeking to trigger a declaration
of a state of emergency that would
prevent elections taking place as
scheduled next year.
“There is serious political tension in
the county,” the source said.
The Shabaab has fought to overthrow
the internationally-backed
government in Mogadishu since 2007,
but turned its sights on Kenya when
the army was sent into Somalia in
2011 to fight the Islamic insurgents.
Since then the militants have targeted
civilians in different parts of Kenya,
including a dramatic assault on
Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall in
2013 in which at least 67 people were
killed.