Al-Shabaab Claim Kenya Bus Attack

Somalia's Al-Shabaab militant group claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a bus in north-eastern Kenya in which at least 28 people were killed.



"The Mujahideen killed 30 Kenyan crusaders in an attack on a passenger bus," Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement on Saturday.



At least 28 people were reportedly killed when militants attacked a bus traveling to the capital Nairobi from the north-eastern town of Mandera on early Saturday.



In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan strongly condemned the attack.



"The United States condemns in the strongest terms today's horrific attack in Kenya by the terrorist group al-Shabaab against innocent civilians traveling aboard a Nairobi-bound bus," she said. "The United States stands with our Kenyan partners in the effort to counter the threat of terrorism and affirms our ongoing commitment to working with all Kenyans to combat these atrocities."



In recent years, the Al-Qaeda-linked group has carried out repeated attacks in Mogadishu on Somali government officials and foreign troops. 



They have also carried out intermittent attacks in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and in Kenya's northeastern region.



In September 2013, at least 67 people were killed in a four-day long hostage-taking saga in an upmarket Nairobi shopping mall.



The attack was eventually claimed by Al-Shabaab.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Washington DC