Kenya: Somalia’s Shabab Islamists on Saturday ambushed a bus in Kenya and executed 28 non-Muslim passengers in what they said was revenge for police raids on mosques in the troubled port of Mombasa.
“I can confirm… that 28 innocent travelers were brutally executed by the Shabab,” regional police chief Noah Mwavinda told AFP.
The bus, which was headed for the capital Nairobi, was ambushed shortly after departing from Mandera, a town lying 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 travelers 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. A Shabab spokesman said the deadly attack was in revenge for raids this week on four Mombasa mosques that 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.
Police closed the four mosques in Mombasa, a largely Muslim city unlike much of Kenya where Christians make up 80 percent of the population, on the grounds they had come under the influence of hard-liners.
A 25-year-old passenger on the bus, who asked to be identified only as Ibrahim, told AFP that the vehicle came under fire several times after leaving Mandera, leaving one passenger dead.
The driver tried to escape but was finally forced to stop by the group of around 70 assailants, he said. “When the bus came to a stop … the passengers were divided into two groups, one made up of people they believed were Muslim, and those they believed who weren’t,” the eyewitness said.
The attackers, who identified themselves as members of the Shabab, read verses from the Qur’an to the Muslims, urging them to combat the Kenyan authorities.
Ibrahim said they were then ordered to walk to a nearby village. He said he witnessed the execution of two non-Muslim passengers, who were shot in the head. Mandera’s police chief said the hostages were first put aboard the bus but that when it bogged down “they executed their prisoners.”
Kenya has suffered a series of attacks since invading Somalia in 2011 to attack the Shabab, later joining an African Union force battling the Islamists.
The Shabab 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 Shabab 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, UN 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 UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.
Darlinton Omeh says
Well, when you feel aggrieved over maltreatment someone gave to you, what do you do? You confront the person with your vengeance. You don’t stay by the roadside or in the churches or within the streets or in the supermarkets and begin to slaughter anyone at sight, innocent people who has nothing to do with your grievances. If America or Israel as a nation has sinned against Arab or Islam as a kingdom or religion, let them prepare their army and confront America or Israel in a battlefield, fight until you all perish or until you win. That’s how real men do, you only keep betraying your cowardice when you keep ambushing and killing innocent people.
Ejinwa Anthony says
DARLINTON it’s quite easy to say when you haven’t come across someone that did something terrible to the one you love. Am not trying to defend their action am just saying that most times this actions are done at of revenge and not hatred
Darlinton Omeh says
Honestly, it’s just undefinable how someone could be so happy taking someone else life who have done him to harm in anyway. Someone he never knew nor meet before. With hearts so hard and ears so deafened that no amount of plea from these helpless innocent victim ever get to their ears. They are animals
Ken Sears says
A brutal demonic blood-lust has been set loose in the world of Islam. It’s all really just about the “joy” of killing and the rush of “godhood” they get from it. When they scream “allahu akbar” they are actually crowing about how great THEY feel. It’s a spirit of bloodlust straight from the “father of lies” who wants only to kill and destroy. These Islamist murderers are the spawn of Satan.
Eugine says
Quite alot to hope for Anthony, you are very right about that but we as human being don’t deserve less than that. More. Slaughtering our fellow man for whatever reason is certainly the acceptable
Ejinwa Anthony says
They don’t need to read the bible to know that some act are just inhumane and unjust
Ejinwa Anthony says
Exactly my brother
Ejinwa Anthony says
That’s quiet alot to hope for, but then if all these can be achieved then the world will definitely be a better place to dwell in
Ejinwa Anthony says
This is pathetic, what’s with the differentiation of Muslim and non Muslims, I just hope the govt. won’t fold their hands and watch the papertriators of this crime go unpunished
Darlinton Omeh says
We hope and pray for a better world where human will treat it’s fellow human with love and dignity. Where religious bigotry and fundamentalism would be gone for good. Where ideology wouldn’t be placed above the sanctity of human life.Where we wouldn’t let Imams, Priests, Pastors, or whomever to brainwash us – My ideal world will soon be here!
insha Allaah says
religion is a matter of wish, killing unjust for the sake of religion is irreligious.
insha Allaah says
what has reading Bible got to do with unjust killing.
For your info: I have read the bible, the flaws I’m it does not present it a book from god whom you claimed you serve
my take : regardless of what you serve, humanity must be treated in esteem.
ubesie chukwuebuka chidiogo says
28 killed this painful, this is why the Bible order us not to pay back by evil, had it been the Muslim are reading Bible they should understand the fact of what I’m saying, Kenya Government should fight to the end of this killings, my condolence to the family of the lost ones may God enrich you sorrows with happiness RIP