{Kenya’s army said it attacked camps used by the Islamist group al-Shabaab, killing more than 100 fighters, after the militants claimed responsibility for a bus attack in the northeast of the country that left 28 people dead.}
Fighter jets targeted two camps near Godondowe in Somalia, killing 95 militants, Kenya’s Defence Ministry said late yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Ground troops and helicopter gunships killed another 20 members of the al-Qaeda-linked group as they fled to the Arabia Hills along the Kenya-Somali border, it said. Al-Shabaab, in a statement broadcast on Radio Andalus, denied they lost fighters in government attacks.
“This rapid action is itself a huge victory against regional terrorist networks,” Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said in a statement. “It emboldens us to ultimately deliver our promise to secure our citizens against internal and external aggression.”
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the Nov. 22 attack on a bus while it was traveling between the towns of Mandera and Bulla Arabia, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) northeast of the capital, Nairobi. Non-Muslims were separated from other passengers before being killed by gunmen, according to Mandera Deputy County Commissioner Elvin Korir.
Kenya has faced increasing attacks by Islamist militants since sending its troops into neighboring Somalia in October 2011 to fight al-Shabaab, which has waged an insurgency against that country’s government since 2006.
{{Bloomberg}}
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