Shebab Islamists Execute 28 Non-Muslims on Kenya Bus

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Somalia's Shebab Islamists on Saturday ambushed a bus in Kenya, killing 28 non-Muslim passengers in what they said was a revenge attack for police raids on mosques in the troubled port city of Mombasa.

"I can confirm... that 28 innocent travellers were brutally executed by the Shebab," regional police chief Noah Mwavinda told Agence France Presse.

The gunmen ambushed the bus in the early morning as it headed for the capital Nairobi from Mandera, a town that lies right on the border with Somalia in Kenya's northeasternmost corner.

Some 60 passengers on board were ordered off the vehicle, and the gunmen separated the travellers into Muslims and non-Muslims.

The militants then had the non-Muslims reboard the bus and tried to drive off with them, but the vehicle got stuck.

"So they executed their prisoners" before escaping back into Somalia, Mwavinda said.

Kenya's Red Cross confirmed the death toll in a tweet after its team arrived at the scene.

The executions came after a week that saw one person shot dead and more than 350 people arrested as Kenyan security forces carried out raids on mosques in Mombasa, looking for arms and Shebab sympathisers.

Police seized weapons and found black Islamist flags like those flown by the Shebab in the raids.

Four people were stabbed to death in apparent revenge attacks on Monday, with gangs taking to the streets beating some and knifing others after the raids that raised tensions in a city hit by a string of bombings and shootings.

A Shebab spokesman said the bus attack was in retribution for the raids on the mosques, which further hiked simmering tensions in the city.

"The Mujahedeen successfully carried out an operation near Mandera early this morning, which resulted in the perishing of 28 crusaders, as a revenge for the crimes committed by the Kenyan crusaders against our Muslim brethren in Mombasa," Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement sent to AFP.

 

- Shebab a threat despite strikes - 

Kenya has suffered a series of attacks since invading Somalia in 2011 to attack the Shebab, later joining an African Union force battling the Islamists.

The Shebab carried out the September 2013 attack on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall, killing at least 67 people, as a warning to Kenya to pull its troops out of southern Somalia.

During the Westgate attack, some of the victims were killed after the gunmen weeded out non-Muslims for execution by demanding they recite the Shahada, the Muslim profession of faith.

The Shebab has lost a series of key towns and ports to the AU force and Somalian government army, heralded as advances that would stem the militants' multi-million dollar business trading charcoal to Gulf countries.

But in a recent report, U.N. investigators warned that the air and drone strikes on the militia have done little to damage it in the long term and that the insurgents continue to pose a serious regional threat.

Indeed, pressure on the fighters has forced them to "become more operationally audacious by placing greater emphasis on exporting its violence beyond the borders of Somalia" and across the Horn of Africa, said an October report by the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.

Comments 6
Thumb ado.australia 22 November 2014, 16:17

"Those that could not recite verses from the Koran were slaughtered!" BBC news. Al Shebab, ISIS, Al Nusra, Boko Haram... All cut from the same zealot cloth! God help all those people living amongst these demons!

Thumb ado.australia 22 November 2014, 17:29

True, but in defence of Naharnet... This is the same line being used in most international media.

Missing peace 22 November 2014, 18:15

you forgot pro saudi, pro alien, pro communist, pro buddhist in your idiotic list with no logic at all, like you in a word....

as long as it is not pro hezbollah we know nothing suits your empty brain....

Missing people-power 22 November 2014, 21:43

The big question is.......

Why does an unemployed loser (taqiya-thrower) spend all of his time (24/7) posting comments on a pro-israeli pro-islamist website that he claims is biased against him?

He insults Naharnet constantly, but yet his whole life is spent commenting on Naharnet articles?

Strange huh?

Another subject that puzzles me.....

What type of person spends his whole day insulting people on the internet??

Psychologists would call this behavior very unstable and troubling.

Thumb ado.australia 22 November 2014, 17:37

The international media is desperately trying to keep on message that its extremist muslims fighting each other with christians collateral damage. But the reality is christians are fair "infidel" game and in the case of Boko Haram, the sole targets! Thats why boko haram killing 90 people (christians) a few days ago, barley got mentioned in the media!

Turkey the main problem... you can talk about the crusaders 1000 years ago but don't say anything about the 1.5 million Armenian christians slaughtered in a holocaust, or the millions of christians killed by stalin!

Thumb ado.australia 22 November 2014, 18:29

no Flamethrower. This franciscan Pope is the best thing to happen to the church in ages. He preaches the basic truth! Love your neighbours, help the poor, and judge not others. He is against capitalism in its purist most degenerate form. This is real a holy man. The slaughter of christians is the fault and responsibility of the western nations. They are the ones that help cause it, and do nothing but offer refuge to them fleeing! All still supporting and friendly with those nations that fund and support these terrorists committing the slaughter.