Al Shabaab kills 28 in Kenya
Twenty-eight people are dead after the Somali terrorist group al Shabaab hijacked a bus in Kenya and executed all of the passengers who were not Muslims.
CNN reports that the bus was headed from the Kenyan town of Mandera to the capital of Nairobi. Mandera is situated on the shared border of Kenya and Somalia.
The bus left Mandera around dawn, and was stopped by al Shabaab militants after traveling around 20 miles. CNN says that once the bus was stopped, Shabaab members entered the vehicle and began demanding that the passengers recite verses of the Quran. Those who were unable to do so were then executed. Al Shabaab has officially claimed responsibility for the killings and says they were revenge for a series of raids by Kenyan security forces on mosques in Mombassa. CNN says that explosives were found in one of the mosques and the raids triggered protests that saw Muslim youths clashing in the streets with Kenyan police. Reuters reports those raids and clashes led to 376 arrests and the death of one man who was shot by police. The Kenyan government responded to the attack outside Mandera by launching airstrikes and a ground assault on a camp that is thought to have been the killers' base of operations. Although based in Somalia, this attack is not al Shabaab's first foray into Kenya. One of their most devastating attacks was the assault on the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi in 2013. That assault lasted for several days and resulted in the deaths of 68 people.
This attack also shows that despite military gains against al Shabaab in Somalia, the group remains quite formidable. The Somali government has grown in strength recently, and controls much of the capital of Mogadishu. This most recent attack also comes less than two months after al Shabaab's leader Ahmed Godane was killed in a US airstrike.
