At least 41 people were killed Thursday in a bus crash west of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the Kenyan Red Cross said.

"It is a horrible scene. Bodies are strewn all over," traffic police official Samuel Kimaru said by telephone from the scene near the town of Narok.

African troops in Somalia said they thwarted an attack Thursday by Islamist Shebab fighters on their base in the southern port city of Kismayo.

The African Union troops repulsed the al-Qaida-linked Shebab when they first attacked on Wednesday evening, the force, AMISOM, said in a statement.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces trial on charges of crimes against humanity, was welcomed to China on Monday with a 21-gun salute and a meeting with President Xi Jinping.

Kenyatta, who took office in March after a contested election, met Xi following an elaborate ceremony outside Beijing's ornate Great Hall of the People.

An attack blamed on Somali Islamist insurgents left four people dead in eastern Kenya and prompted hundreds to flee into the bush, authorities and the Red Cross said Saturday.

"There was an attack (near) Garissa," a high-ranking interior ministry official, Mutea Iringo, told AFP. "Heavily armed Shebab carried out a raid on a police post in Galmagala. A police officer died."

The FBI is helping Kenyan authorities investigate the cause of a huge blaze that paralyzed Nairobi airport, a police official said Friday.

Investigators have still not established what caused Wednesday's blaze, which raged out of control for several hours.

International flights landed at Nairobi airport Thursday morning, the first since a fire a day earlier gutted the arrivals terminal causing widespread chaos and delays, airport officials said.

The fire forced the cancellation or diversion of scores of flights at east Africa's biggest transport hub.

A massive fire engulfed the arrivals hall at Kenya's main international airport early Wednesday, forcing East Africa's largest airport to close and the rerouting of all inbound flights.

Dark black smoke that billowed skyward was visible across much of Nairobi as emergency teams battled the blaze. Stranded passengers stood on sidewalks outside the airport with their luggage in hand.

Two Kenyan officials kidnapped by the Somali Islamist group Shebab during an attack in northeastern Kenya last year have been released, the Kenyan presidency announced Tuesday.

"Two Kenyans abducted by Somali Shebab insurgents on January 11th, 2012, have been released following successful negotiations spearheaded by border communities in North Eastern Province," a statement from State House said.

Two witnesses due to testify in Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta's upcoming crimes against humanity trial have withdrawn because of security concerns, the International Criminal Court said on Thursday.

Testimony by a third witness was also no longer needed to prove the case, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's office said in a statement sent to Agence France Presse.

Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto will be tried for crimes against humanity in The Hague in September, the International Criminal Court said on Monday, slapping down a request by defense lawyers to have the hearing moved to Africa.

"The judges of the ICC have decided... that the commencement of the trial against William Ruto will take place at the seat of the court in The Hague, Netherlands," the tribunal said in a statement.