Suspected Islamist terrorists, thought to belong to the Al-Shabaab group, have staged an assault on a village and a breakout raid on a jail, killing at least 22 people. The violence is in the same Kenyan state where over 60 were killed last month.
Police said that militants carjacked a truck near Gamba in the
coastal district of Lamu, then killed its driver and two
passengers, before pulling up at the local police station.
Once inside, they overpowered the garrison, killing one policeman
and leaving five others wounded. The militants then massacred
five inmates in their cells, bringing the death total to nine,
before escaping with three others.
An anonymous police source told Reuters that the fugitives were
held as suspects in a nearby attack on the Christian village of
Mpeketoni last month. At the time, Al-Shabaab took responsibility
for the attack, saying it was revenge for Kenya’s contribution to
the African Union peacekeeping force that has been battling
Islamists in neighboring Somalia for the past seven years.
An Al-Shabaab representative told Reuters the group was behind
the police station raid, and claimed responsibility for a second
assault on the trading post and village of Hindi, also near the
coast.
Police said that a group of 10 to 15 militants appeared without
warning at around 10 pm on Saturday and began shooting and
burning local houses.
"They went around shooting at people and villages
indiscriminately," Abdallah Shahasi, the area police chief,
told Reuters.
While the gunmen hunted down local men, the women were forced to
watch as their husbands and children were murdered, and their
possessions destroyed.
"They said they were attacking because Muslims' lands were being
taken," villager Elizabeth Opindo said. The traditionally
Muslim region has become a hotbed of religious and tribal
tensions, after Christian tribes were allocated land by
government programs from the 1960s onward.
The attackers also left a message on a blackboard of a local
school.
"You invade Muslim country and you want to stay in
peace," it read in English.
Al-Shabaab – which once enjoyed close links with Al-Qaeda, but
has struck out on its own in the past two years – claimed they
did not encounter resistance.
"The attackers came back home safely to their base,"
said a statement from its spokesman, Abdulaziz Abu Musab.
Police said that the death toll for the attack was 13, while the
Interior ministry said that at least 20 people died.
"We had attacks at night where people were killed and houses
destroyed,” said Robert Kitur, a Lamu police official.
“We have mobilized our officers and we are on the ground. We
are calling on the public to work closely with us."
While most independent observers have blamed Somali-based
Islamists for the spate of attacks, Kenya’s president, Uhuru
Kenyatta, has instead blamed “local political networks” for the
violence. The region’s governor, Issa Timamy, an opponent of the
country’s central authorities, was charged with terrorism and
murder following last month’s massacre.