Kenyan security shake up after extremists kill 36
Print Edition
ISLAMIC militants killed 36 non-Muslim quarry workers in northern Kenya early yesterday, prompting Kenya’s president to announce a security shake up, firing his Interior Minister and accepting the resignation of the national police chief.
President Uhuru Kenyatta named an opposition politician and retired army general, Joseph Nkaissery, to be the new Interior Minister, in charge of security. Police Chief David Kimaiyo resigned, citing personal reasons.
Pressure had been mounting for them to go following a string of attacks.
Yesterday’s killings happened at a quarry in Mandera County near the border with Somalia and the attackers escaped. The attackers singled out non-Muslims and killed them, similar to an extremist attack on a bus 10 days ago.
The killings were claimed by al-Shabab, which is battling to establish hard-line Islamic rule in Somalia.
At the quarry, a group of about 50 heavily armed men walked into the camp at 12:30am as the workers were sleeping and fired warning shots, said Peter Nderitu, who works at the quarry.
Nderitu said when he heard shooting he hid in a trench from where he heard colleagues being asked to recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed declaring oneness with God. Then gunshots followed.
Emerging from his hiding place two hours later, Nderitu said he saw the bodies of his colleagues in two rows, nearly all shot in the back of the head.
The quarry camp is in the Koromey area on the outskirts of Mandera town.
Al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said the attack was a response to Kenya’s troop presence in Somalia and alleged atrocities committed by the Kenyan army there, such as a recent airstrike. Al-Shabab claimed the airstrike killed innocent people. The Kenyan government said the airstrike was in response to a November 22 al-Shabab attack on bus passengers in Mandera County that left 28 people dead.
The quarry attack came hours after a hotel in Wajir, also in northern Kenya, was hit by a grenade and gunfire attack that killed one person and wounded 13, according to police.
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