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Al-Shabaab claim responsibility for Mandera attack


Somali militant group Al-Shabaab have admitted being behind Tuesday’s attack in Mandera that left 36 people dead.

The Islamist group said its fighters had killed 40 Kenyans, though the death toll has been confirmed to be 36.

“In another successful operation carried out by the Mujahideen, nearly 40 Kenyan crusaders met their demise after a unit from the Saleh Nabhan brigade raided them in the midnight hours of Monday at Koromei, on the outskirts of Mandera,” the group said in a statement.

REVENGE

Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said the attack was part of their revenge for the invasion by the Kenyan military in Somalia.

“This latest attack was part of a series of attacks planned and executed by the Mujahideen to serve as a response to Kenya’s occupation of Muslim lands and their ongoing atrocities therein… as well as the continued suffering of Muslims in Mombasa,” the statement said.

SLEEPING WORKERS

During Tuesday’s attack, Al-Shabaab fighters sprayed gunfire at tents where the quarry workers were sleeping in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The gunmen then separated non-Muslims from the other workers, beheaded several and executed the rest with a bullet to the head, police sources said, a pattern of attack similar to the killing of 28 people on a bus in the same region last month.

The quarry attack, some 15 kilometres (10 miles) from the remote town of Mandera, is close to where Islamists last month executed 28 non-Muslims who were grabbed from a bus.

The Al-Shabaab said the bus attack was carried out in revenge for police raids on mosques in Kenya’s key port of Mombasa.

Kenya has suffered a series of attacks since invading Somalia in 2011 to attack the Shebab. Kenyan forces have since joined an African Union force battling the Islamists.