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Kenya blasts linked to al Shabab

March 11, 2012

Kenyan police investigating a bus station grenade attack that killed at least four have blamed the Islamist Shabab militia. The group has vowed to exact revenge for Kenya’s role fighting rebels in neighboring Somalia.

https://p.dw.com/p/14Isf
A view of the scene of an explosion near a country bus station in Kenya's capital Nairobi
Image: Reuters

Kenyan police say a grenade attack that killed six people and wounded 63 at one of the main bus stations in Nairobi was carried out by Islamist al Shabab militia.

"This is a cowardly act by al Shabab elements, but we will not relent in the war," said police spokesman Charles Owino. "We will get them and we will continue with the war."

Witnesses reported that people in a moving car threw three grenades at the open-air bus terminal.

It is the first such outbreak of violence in Nairobi since two grenade attacks within 24 hours of each other last October, which killed one and injured 30.

Kenyan army soldiers patrol near their base in Tabda, inside Somalia Monday, Feb. 20, 2012. Kenya's military has been fighting inside Somalia in an ongoing offensive against militant group al-Shabab since October, when Somali gunmen carried out several kidnappings in Kenya. (Foto:Ben Curtis/AP/dapd)
Kenyan troops crossed the Somali border to fight insurgents last yearImage: AP

A Kenyan supporter of al Shabab was arrested soon after that attack and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after he confessed.

Attack threat in retaliation

Although no one has so far claimed responsibility for the latest incident, al Shabab has threatened reprisal attacks against Kenya after it sent its troops into southern Somalia in mid-October to fight the group.

Nairobi had blamed the group - linked to an al-Qaeda insurgency in Somalia - for abductions, which had threatened the country's crucial tourism industry, although the insurgents denied any involvement.

Some 23 combatants were reported by witnesses to have died on Saturday when al Shabab launched an attack on an Ethiopian base in southern Somalia.

Ethiopian troops also moved into border regions of Somalia earlier this year as part of counter-insurgency measures.

rc/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)