Militants Kill 36 Non-Muslims in Northern Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya — Dec 2, 2014, 4:52 PM ET
By TOM ODULA Associated Press
Soldiers of Kenyan Defence Forces look over the bodies of some 36 Kenyans as they lie at a quarry, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014. Kenya police say that at least 36 quarry workers were killed in an attack in northern Kenya by suspected Islamic extremists from... Somalia. The al-Qaida-linked group has vowed to strike against Kenya for sending its troops into Somalia, and it has claimed it was behind the bus attack and the siege at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi last year that left 67 dead.
The group has suffered a series of setbacks this year. It lost control of a key coastal stronghold in Somalia to government and African Union troops in October, and its spiritual leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, was killed in a U.S. airstrike Sept. 1.
But the Nov. 22 bus attack and the quarry killings Tuesday showed that the group is still capable of bold incursions into the east African country.
Al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said the quarry attack was a response to Kenya's deployment of troops to Somalia in 2011 and to alleged atrocities committed by the Kenyan army there. Al-Shabab said a recent airstrike had killed innocent people and destroyed their property.
In his security shakeup, Kenyatta fired Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku, a former hotelier whose competence had been questioned, and replaced him with Joseph Nkaissery, an opposition politician and retired army general. Kenyatta also accepted the resignation of Police Chief David Kimaiyo, who said he was taking early retirement for personal reasons.
Tuesday's attack began after 12:30 a.m. when about 50 men walked into the tented camp next to the quarry in the Koromey area on the outskirts of the town of Mandera, said worker Peter Nderitu.
When he heard the shooting, Nderitu ran and hid in a trench. He said he heard his colleagues being asked to recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed declaring oneness with God. Gunshots followed.
He only rose from his hiding place two hours later, when he was sure there was no more movement. The bodies of his colleagues were in two rows and nearly all had been shot in the back of the head, he said. The gunmen escaped.
The bodies of the 36 were flown to Nairobi, where relatives gathered at the city morgue to identify their kin.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Washington vigorously condemned al-Shabab's "continued cowardly, brutal targeting of civilians." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the attack, and reaffirmed U.N. support for Kenya's efforts to fight terrorism, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
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well over there due to my profession.
