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MOMBASA. — At least 50 people were killed when suspected Islamist gunmen in minibuses sped into a town on Kenya’s coast, shooting soccer fans watching a World Cup match in a television hall and targeting hotels, a police post and a bank.
Police said Somalia’s Al-Shabaab Islamist group was most likely to blame for Sunday night’s assault on the town of Mpeketoni, which lies on the Indian Ocean coastline that runs north from Kenya’s main port of Mombasa to the Somali border.
Somali website www.somalimemo.net said the Islamist group had claimed responsibility. It gave no details and the group’s spokesman could not be reached for comment on the assault, the latest in a spate of gun and bomb attacks in recent months that have hurt Kenya’s struggling tourism industry.
Kenya, which has blamed Al-Shabaab for previous attacks, had said it would be on alert during the World Cup to ensure public showings of matches were kept safe.
“The attackers were so many and were all armed with guns. They entered the video hall where we were watching a World Cup match and shot indiscriminately at us,” Meshack Kimani told Reuters by telephone. “They targeted only men but I was lucky. I escaped by hiding behind the door.”
The attack could heighten existing worries in other African nations such as Nigeria, which is battling the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency, that bars and other venues hosting World Cup match screenings could become targets.
Sunday’s assault is the worst in Kenya since last September when Al-Shabaab gunmen attacked Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall, leaving 67 people dead.
After Westgate, Al-Shabaab warned of more attacks, saying they were determined to drive Kenyan troops out of Somalia. Kenya, whose soldiers are deployed as part of an African peacekeeping force battling militants, says it won’t pull out. — Reuters.
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