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Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels Al-Shabaab attacked a bus in northern Kenya at dawn yesterday, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not recite an Islamic creed, Kenyan police said.
Those who could not say the Shahada, a tenet of the Muslim faith, were assumed to be non-Muslims and were then shot at close range, a survivor said.
Nineteen men and nine women were killed, said Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo.
Seventeen of the 28 dead were teachers, according to the police commander in Mandera County.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility through its radio station in Somalia saying the killings were in retaliation for raids by Kenyan security forces on four mosques last week.
Kenya's military said it responded to the killings with air strikes that destroyed the attackers' camp in Somalia and killed 45 rebels.
The bus travelling to the capital Nairobi with 60 passengers was hijacked about 50km from the border town of Mandera.
The attackers first tried to wave the bus down but it didn't stop so the gunmen sprayed it with bullets, police officers said. When that did not work, the fired a rocket-propelled grenade.
The gunmen then took control of the vehicle and ordered all the passengers out, separating those who appeared to be non-Muslims - mostly non-Somalis - from the rest.
George Ochwodho, a non-Muslim head teacher of a private primary school in Mandera, survived the attack. He said the non-Somali passengers were then asked to recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed declaring oneness with God. Those who could not recite it were ordered to lie down. Ochwodho was among them.
Two gunmen started shooting those on the ground; one gunman starting from the left and other from the right. Ochwodho said that when they reached him they were confused on whether either had shot him.
Ochwodho lay still until the gunmen left, he said. He then ran back to the road and got a lift to Mandera where he was rushed to hospital and treated for shock.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for last year's assault on Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall in which 67 people were killed.


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World

Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels Al-Shabaab attacked a bus in northern Kenya at dawn on Saturday, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not recite an Islamic creed, Kenyan police said.
