Militants from the group al-Shabaab killed six people in an attack in northeast Kenya yesterday, the latest in a series of raids by the group in the region.
Mandera on the Somalian border has often been targeted by al-Shabaab, which says it will continue its campaign of attacks in Kenya until the government withdraws its troops from Somalia, where they are part of an African force.
“We have suffered another sad attack,” Mandera County Governor Ali Roba wrote on Twitter, saying six people had been confirmed killed.
“If not for the quick response by our security forces, we would be talking of many more casualties now,” Roba said by telephone. “From the nature and style of the attack, it will obviously be al-Shabaab.”
Kenya’s Daily Nation said on its Web site that the attack occurred early in the morning at a public works site.
“We are behind the Mandera attack in which we killed six Christians,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, said, adding that they had also hit a police vehicle using a roadside bomb.
Repeated in attacks in Kenya by al-Shabaab have killed hundreds of people in the past three years, negatively affecting the nation’s vital tourism industry.
The assaults have often been in the northeast, near the long and porous border with Somalia, but the group has also struck coastal areas popular with tourists and the capital Nairobi, where al-Shabaab gunman attacked the Westgate shopping mall in 2013.
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