Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militia, said it carried out an attack on Christians traveling on a Nairobi-bound bus in northeastern Kenya, killing 28 people.

According to the Interior Ministry the bus was carrying a total of 60 people. The Deputy County Commissioner of Kenyan town Mandera Elvin Korir told Bloomberg, “Non-Muslims were separated from other passengers before being killed.”

The attack is linked with a crackdown on at least four mosques in Mombasa where police arrested at least 350 people and seized weapons including hand grenades and petrol bombs, along with jihadist literature.

Speaking to a pro-Al-Shabaab broadcaster, Radio Andulus, an al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamed Rageh said “The Mujahedeen intercepted a bus, which had on board a group of Christians that enjoyed the killing and the maiming of Muslims.”

In October 2011 Kenya sent its troops to neighboring Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab and since then it has faced increasing attacks by Islamist militants.

Al-Shabaab has waged an insurgency against Somalia’s government since 2006.

Source: Bloomberg